Marks above 90% – Why Everyone Wants to touch it?

Need of marks as a motivator:

To start the discussion over the need for marks, we shall go step-by-step. According to Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, the self-actualisation needs is the motivator that motivates people to perform their best.

       But sadly, this is not true in the case of students, they want to score good marks just because of this ongoing race and weird competition of judging someone’s ability on their marks.

The reason behind the 90% marks’ race:

       Everyone wants to perform well and succeed in life. For a good future, we want a good job; for high-paying jobs, we want a good degree and for that, we need a reputed college.

       Taking class XII board exams in India as an example, many colleges and universities for bachelor degree courses like St. Stephens, SRCC, Lady SRCC, Miranda, Hansraj, St. Xavier’s etc. have their cut-off marks so high that, in order to get admission there, students have to score high. This ‘high’ sometimes means 98%, 99% and even higher in some rare circumstances.

       These factors have altogether put so much pressure on students’ minds that they don’t have an option. They have to score 90%+ to just survive in this competition. The stereotype of our society is that if a child doesn’t get 90%+, then he/she is worthless and good-for-nothing. “Marks guarantee success” and this is the first opinion of people. But it’s a myth. Due to peer pressure, society’s stereotypes and parents’ expectations students carry this huge burden of scoring 90%+.

What’s wrong today in the process of scoring well?

      The students do whatever they find suitable to score high marks. The focus is given on scoring good marks rather than learning. No one is interested in “Learning the concept”. They just memorize the answers to get good marks because they don’t want to be a shame to their families. We can all see that recently, class XII results are out and many children are ashamed to tell their score as they didn’t touch ‘the line’.

It’s true that one should work hard to score well. But our success must be characterized by the amount of our hard work and not our scores. Parents need to understand that by putting so much pressure on their child(ren) they actually reduce their chances of scoring well. The children feel weighed down by the pressure and they are not able to perform well.

Suggestions?

In this competitive world, we have to cope-up with the race, but everyone has to understand that marks are not everything. A child’s ability to learn and his/her hard work is more important. Only hard work guarantees success. 

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To know ‘How to become a topper’, click here.

To check CBSE XII results of the year 2017, click here.