Why Are Students So Afraid?

Ishika, Student Peer Educator,  

As a student peer educator working closely with students, parents, coaching environments, and educational ecosystems, I have recently been reflecting deeply on the emotional reality behind competitive examinations in India. What appears on the outside as “preparation” often hides exhaustion, anxiety, uncertainty, financial pressure, and emotional burnout.

This reflection became stronger after reading recent discussions and editorials around the ongoing NEET-related controversies, examination stress, and student mental health. The issue is no longer only academic. It has become social, emotional, and deeply human.

Recently, I visited educational hubs such as Noida Sector 62, where coaching institutes like Unacademy, Physics Wallah, and Allen Career Institute operate alongside major examination centres. During ongoing competitive exams, I observed hundreds of students and parents waiting outside examination buildings from early morning. Some students arrived with structured support systems and private transport, while others sat on roadsides for hours with their admit cards, water bottles, and bags, silently waiting for an opportunity that could decide years of their lives.

What stood out to me most was not only student stress, but parental exhaustion. Parents waited for hours outside centres, emotionally invested in every minute of the examination process. Their anxiety was visible too. Education in India has become a shared emotional burden carried by entire families.

This situation strongly reminded me of my own experience during the COVID-19 lockdown when I was in Class 10. Like many students across the country, I experienced confusion, uncertainty, sudden changes in learning systems, online classes, isolation, and fear regarding examinations and the future. During lockdown, education stopped feeling stable. Every announcement about postponements, cancellations, online examinations, or changing schedules created panic among students and parents alike.

For students preparing for exams like NEET and JEE, the impact was even more severe. Their preparation cycles were interrupted repeatedly, coaching shifted online, and many students struggled with internet access, concentration, emotional isolation, and fear of losing an academic year. Research conducted during the pandemic found that uncertainty and postponed examinations significantly increased stress and anxiety among NEET aspirants. 

Even today, similar emotional patterns continue. Recent NEET-related controversies and paper leak concerns have once again pushed lakhs of students and families into uncertainty and emotional exhaustion. Reports highlight that many students feel psychologically drained after preparing for years for a single examination system that now feels unstable and unpredictable. 

Mental health professionals are also warning that such uncertainty deeply affects young people’s emotional well-being. One psychiatrist explained how students preparing for NEET often isolate themselves socially for years, sacrificing rest, hobbies, and normal teenage experiences under constant pressure to perform. 

As a peer educator, I believe this issue must be viewed from a wider ecosystem perspective. Coaching institutes today are highly efficient in academic preparation, syllabus completion, and competitive performance. However, many students still feel emotionally unsupported. The system measures ranks, percentages, and scores, but rarely asks:

Is the student mentally okay?

Is the family emotionally coping?

Is learning becoming fear-driven instead of growth-driven?

Through field conversations and surveys, I observed that many students hesitate to openly discuss anxiety because they fear disappointing their parents or appearing weak. Parents, on the other hand, often unknowingly increase pressure because they themselves are worried about the future, financial investment, and social expectations.

This is why community-based support systems are becoming increasingly important. Education cannot remain limited to marks and admissions alone. Schools, organizations, peer educators, mental health professionals, and communities must work together to create emotionally safer learning environments.

One important concept I recently explored during mentor discussions was the idea of giving students a short emotional recovery period after examinations — a few minutes where children are not immediately questioned about marks, mistakes, or answers. Instead, they should be allowed to breathe, relax, and reconnect emotionally before academic discussions begin. Small changes like these can reduce stress significantly.

The larger problem is that India’s educational culture has normalized chronic stress. Students are expected to continuously compete, compare, sacrifice, and “adjust.” But emotional burnout is real. Recent reports around NEET and board examinations repeatedly describe students feeling trapped in cycles of uncertainty, pressure, and fear. 

At the same time, this issue is not only about examinations. It is also about inequality. During my field visits, I saw students from very different economic backgrounds preparing for the same future under completely different circumstances. Some had access to expensive coaching, private support systems, and comfortable environments, while others prepared amidst financial limitations, long travel, and unstable resources.

Yet despite these differences, one thing remained common: hope.

Every student waiting outside an exam centre is carrying hope — for stability, dignity, opportunity, and a better future.As student peer educators and members of educational ecosystems, our responsibility is not only to guide academically, but also to listen, empathize, and advocate for healthier learning environments. Students need preparation, but they also need emotional safety. They need competition, but also compassion.

Because education should shape human beings — not break them