Board Result: This site aims to help students look beyond Classes 10, 12 exams, prevent suicides

NEW DELHI: Even if your score in the Class 12 board exams is 60%, it is still higher than what Santosh Kumar, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame scored at that level. It is also higher than Nishit Shrivastava’s Class 12 score and he’s the chief information officer and chief technology officer at Muthoot Fincorp.

There are start-up owners, news anchors and angel investors among those who scored less, shows marksmatch.com, a website that seeks to help youths feel better about their board exam results by putting them into perspective. Marksmatch.com was set up by AASRA, a Mumbai-based non-profit working on preventing suicide since 1998 and American advertising agency McCann Worldgroup after reports of two exam-related suicides this year.

On March 24, three days after the Bihar Board declared the Class 12 results for 2023, a student died by suicide for failing to clear them. Earlier in the month, a girl in Rajasthan had taken her own life fearing she would score under 95% in the Rajasthan Board Class 10 result which is yet to be declared.

As director of AASRA, Johnson Thomas has seen much depression and death but these two cases still shook him. The declaration of Class 10 and Class 12 board exams results usually coincides with a huge spike in depression and suicide. Thomas wanted to intervene before this trend rose any further and before other boards declared their results.

Launched on April 21, Marksmatch.com is a student-friendly website aimed at helping students look beyond exams and marks and stay motivated.

Also Read | NCRB Report 2021: Over 13,000 students died by suicide last year

Beyond board exam results

Scoring below expectation in a board exam does not presage failure in the future. The website helps normalise not-so-good marks and helps students to still look forward to success in life. “The idea is to tell the students and their parents not to lose hope, there is always a way of achieving goals. It might take a little longer but that is okay,” explained Thomas.

Marksmatch.com was built in less than a month with the goal to prevent suicides after the board results. Bihar, Karnataka , Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (at upmsp.edu.in and upresults.nic.in) have already announced Class 10 (matric or SSC result 2023) or Class 12 results (Inter or HSC result 2023) or both. The rest of the states as well as central (CBSE result) and private boards (such as the CISCE) are all likely to declare their results – most of them on www.results.nic.in 2023 – within weeks. The CBSE Class 12 result 2023 expected date is in May.

CBSE (cbse.nic.in), CISCE (cisce.org) and many state boards are yet to declare board exam results (Image: Careers360)

A student can key in their name, class and result percentage and marksmatch.com will display names of professionally successful individuals who scored the same or less at the same level. The student can click on any of the pictures and the website can help create a card with the marks of the achiever as well. This card can be shared on social media, with parents, family members and friends.

Aasra and McCann Worldgroup identified and reached out to ‘achievers’ they work with and requested them for their Class 10 and Class 12 scores which they entered into the website with their images.

Also Read | Kota: NEET aspirant from Bihar dies by suicide in hostel room

Increasing numbers

Most of the distress calls AASRA gets are from students – not just Class 10 and Class 12 board exam candidates but also those preparing for extremely competitive exams such as the NEET UG for medicine and JEE Main and Advanced for engineering. There are also distress calls from PhD students and students who are preparing for recruitment exams.

The age range is wide – 14 to 40 years. The economic and other strains due to the covid-19 pandemic made already vulnerable youths even more so. “Lots of students are finding it even more difficult because it is not easy to work and study in India. So, financially it is becoming unviable for most children to achieve their dream. The pressure on the students to perform well has increased manifold,” explained Thomas.

With school students, the biggest problem is parental aspirations. “They are not setting realistic goals. It is very imperative that they have career counselling done when the child is in Class 10 so that they know what kind of streams the child is capable of going in, then decide on a pathway rather than forcing a child to choose the stream,” said Thomas.

If you, or anyone you know, needs help, AASRA has a list of resources here: http://www.aasra.info/helpline.html