Imagine a world where your entire worth is summed up by a number, not your phone number, not your lucky lottery digits, but your exam score. Welcome to the modern student’s dilemma, where a few percentage points can feel like the difference between glory and gloom. It is like telling a fish it is a failure because it cannot climb a tree—absurd, right? And yet, for millions of students, this is a daily reality.
In a culture where a 90 percent score is worn like a crown and anything less is almost whispered in shame, it is time to challenge the narrative. What is getting lost in the pursuit of perfect marks is something far more valuable: a child's mental health, individuality, and sense of self-worth.
Here is why marks should never be the sole measure of a child’s brilliance:
The Psychological Toll
According to Jasmine Arora, a consultant clinical psychologist at Artemis Hospitals, more than 90% is the ultimate glory, capturing the societal obsession with top scores. But this tunnel vision leaves a large majority of students feeling unseen and undervalued. She says that marks do not reflect a child’s full intelligence, potential, or future success.
She explains that the constant pressure to perform academically often breeds anxiety, stress, and even depression. Many children begin to equate their self-worth with their academic results, leading to a fear of failure and loss of interest in learning. “It makes what should be a joyride a stressful process,” she says.
She also points out a key neurological insight: the prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision-making and managing stress, is still developing in children. When overburdened with expectations, the brain’s amygdala triggers anxiety, impairing emotional health and cognitive function. This can lead to long-term consequences, including performance anxiety and academic burnout.
In her view, success is rooted not in a number on a paper but in the resilience, curiosity, and self-belief a child carries through life. “Let us remind children that they are so much more than their grades,” she urges.
Rewriting the Rules
“Every child is more than a percentage,” remarked Dr. Sunita Gandhi, an educator, challenging the entire exam-centric model. While toppers are celebrated, she reminds us that all children deserve recognition, not for what they score but for who they are.
She explains that exam results are poor indicators of intelligence or potential. Factors like subjective marking, moderation policies, and the margin of error (often 3–7%) render most comparisons statistically shaky. Worse still, this obsession with marks promotes rote learning over real understanding and short-term memory over long-term growth.
“Children even get depressed over one or two marks less than 90%,” she shares, pointing out the emotional toll. Success, she argues, is not linear and the real world values resilience, empathy, creativity, and adaptability far more than academic rankings.
Dr. Gandhi calls for a radical shift: from grades to growth, from results to real learning. “We must affirm children’s worth,” she says, advocating for an education system that nurtures character, life skills, and values such as compassion, curiosity, and climate consciousness.
She outlines a 21st-century vision of education grounded in collaboration, critical thinking, and connectedness, a system that values each child’s unique potential to contribute meaningfully to their families, communities, and the world.
