This school teaches students how to fail

Schools are stepping stones to success. But this school teaches you to fail in order to succeed in life.

This may come as a surprise for many. But in this school, many high scoring students who join class XI are often made to face failure. "Students are taught to accept failure and then they are taught how to succeed. Our school's philosophy is that failure is part of success and students must learn to accept both as part of life," said Mohan Kumar, principal, senior secondary, The School of the Good Shepherd, Thiruvananthapuram.

"They score high marks and have never seen failure. We have many students who can't accept failure, rejection or defeat. In most cases, even parents find it difficult to accept a situation when their child scores less, though they are not really bothered about how little they gain in terms of knowledge", added Kumar.

To test the student's true potential and knowledge, the school sets a question paper focusing on the prescribed textbooks. Not a single question is taken from the previous years' question papers. "Often students who have grown up reading reference books and tuition material find it difficult to answer until they read the textbook thoroughly. Due to this, initially lots of students fail," said Kumar.

According to the school authorities, the textbooks prepared by NCERT is complete and a student who reads, grasps and understands the content in the textbooks can not only score high marks in the Board exams but easily clear entrance exams for medicine and engineering without any extra coaching. So the school asks students to reading their textbooks thoroughly from standard VIII.

"Preparing for competitive exams is not different from what you learn in the Board exams. Time and again it has been proved that 90% of the questions asked in competitive exams are from textbooks," said Kumar. However, to achieve this each student has to strictly follow the timetable and revise whatever they learn in the class within 24 hours.

The school has a master-timetable from Monday to Saturday for senior students, according to which the students should sleep for seven hours, watch TV or read newspaper for an hour, take care of personal matters within two hours, attend seven hours of school and study from the textbooks for eight hours.

"We also encourage the students to scribble on the textbooks itself so that they don't feel the need to refer to any other book or material," added Kumar.

India outclasses US in GMAT scores

India has reasons to cheer when it comes to GMAT, one of the world's most popular exams for MBA. One, the ever-rising number of women taking the exam; and, two, one of the highest GMAT scores in the past five years.

The number of women seeking admission to MBA courses globally has seen a significant jump in the past few years, making them almost 43% of the total candidates. This is true in India too, with the number of women taking GMAT going up to 7,812 from 6,714 five years ago, says "The profile of GMAT Candidates: 2007-08 to 2011-12", released by the Graduate Management Admission Council, the testing agency.

In 2011-12, 1,22,843 women wrote the test as against 85,473 a decade ago, a 43.7% increase.

According to the study, the GMAT score of Indians has shot up over the past five years. The score was 568 in 2007-08, but fell to 565 in the next year. In the next three years, it was 578, 581 and 582 respectively.

China, with a population similar to that of India, had a score of 588 in 2011-12 and, therefore, is one of India's biggest competitors.

Belgium (597), Argentina (595), Australia (598), Hungary (585), South Korea (586) and Britain (587) have a better GMAT score than India's. However, the US is far behind with 533.

"We should not compare ourselves with these countries. The number of GMAT takers there is far less than that in India. For instance, it is as less as 200 for Hungary. We should, rather, focus on countries like China, which has a sizeable population like ours. It is best to look out for future competition between India and China," says Rashmi Gowda, director, CSquare Learnings Pvt Ltd, a GMAT training agency.

China is the top contributor in South Asia to the increasing number of students joining MBA, followed by India. While the candidates joining the course from Business-Commerce background went up at average annual growth rate of 5.1% and that of Social Sciences 2.5%, other streams like that of engineering, humanities and Science have dropped by 1% to 2%. Business-Commerce makes up 55% of the total profiles and engineering another 16.4%. Candidates from humanities and Science background form a mere 5%. There were even a 1000 candidates from fine arts. Social Sciences formed another 16%.

East and Southeast Asia, the region to which India belongs, showed the highest growth rate in sending applicants, almost doubling the number to 77,800 in five years.

TIPS to beat EXAM Stress

Sleep well. A good sleep of six to seven hours will consolidate memory and will enhance it automatically

Proper diet and workout on a daily basis can work wonders. A balanced diet is essential

Get rid of anxiety and frustration

Meditation is a sure-shot way to improve concentration levels and thus memory

Get outdoors. Students must have at least 15 minutes of outdoor activity even during exams. It helps relax

If stress really gets to you, talk to your parents or teachers.

Never forget that there is life after exams.

Exam blues are here

It's that time of the year when stress levels are heightened in families with school-going kids. Stress during exams is common. But the key is to see that it does not spiral out of control. Students preparing for SSLC and PU exams have started consulting psychiatrists and counsellors unable to cope with the stress. Sleeplessness, headaches, anxiety and poor memory are some of the symptoms associated with exam stress students as final examinations near. To beat the stress, many students in this education hub in the state, have started approaching psychiatrists here. The practice of students consulting psychiatrists on the eve of examinations has increased over the years in this region.

Increasing pressure to score good marks in exams, parental and peer pressure to excel has increased stress levels among students, says Anil Kakunje, associate professor in psychiatry, Yenepoya Medical College. Anil, also the secretary of Mangalore Psychiatrists Society, says five years ago on an average around two students would approach him between January and March, the exam time. "But for the past few years, I have been counselling at least six students every day, during January-March," he adds. Most students today, he explains, are unable to concentrate on studies due to mobiles, computers and their obsession with social networking sites,

There are nearly around 30 psychiatrists in the city. PUC and SSLC students are so much involved in preparing for exams and many a times they are not seen out on play grounds, like undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Children today don't have time for extracurricular activities which decreases stress levels tremendously, said Dr Safeek AT, professor in psychiatrics of Father Muller Medical College.

On Monday, Dr KS Madhava Rao, a psychiatrist, got a call informing him of a II PU science student attempting suicide unable to cope with exam pressure. Madhava, also the president of Karnataka State Psychiatrists Association, said that the student had consumed tablets in a bid to end her life.

He says most PU students who approach him are from science stream. "Parents fail to gauge the aptitude of their children. The pressure to perform well weighs heavily on them. During counselling many science students who are depressed tell me that they will not take the exams. The next year, they will shift to arts or commerce," he adds.

During exam period, Rao has at least three students who consult him every week. The rest of the year, he sees just about two students a month.

Psychiatrists have another piece of advice for troubled students. Consult them at the earliest. Don't leave it for the nth hour. "Many students approach us just a few days prior to the exams," says Dr Satheesh Rao, Department of Psychiatry, KS Hegde Medical Academy. "We provide medication to them as they come very late. It's not easy to cure their disorders within a short period of time. If students come earlier, instead of medication, we can do psychotherapy and counselling," he explains.

Shrinivasa Bhat, another psychiatrist, says his clients approach him to enhance their memory and concentration. "Most students, who consult me are academically good. They want to improve their memory. But most students suffer from insomnia and headaches during exam," he adds.

Is Right to Education Act applicable to nursery admission, high court asks Centre

Indicating a sense of urgency, the Delhi high court on Tuesday began a special hearing on the nursery admission case and gave the Centre a day to clarify its stand on whether the Right to Education Act is applicable to nursery classes.

"Two things you need to make clear. Is the Right to Education Act applicable on nursery admission or not and if not applicable, then what is the procedure to be followed for the nursery admission?" said a bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain. The court made it clear that in case no affidavit is filed by the Centre, it will pass an order as the admission process is on hold and it can't afford any further delay.

The court had earlier reserved its verdict on a PIL challenging two government notifications that gave powers to unaided private schools to formulate own criteria for nursery admissions. But the bench explained why it decided to hold a special hearing. "We had reserved our order. We could have taken a stand on the applicability of the Act on the nursery admission, but we wanted to know your (Centre) views also."

Seeking an affidavit, HC pointed out if the RTE Act should start from Class I, what will happen to Section 13 which may be redundant as seats in school is exhausted at the entry level in private schools, making it difficult for new students to enter at the age of 6.

"If it is not applicable (to nursery admission), what is the purpose," the bench said and fixed the matter for hearing on Wednesday.

Additional solicitor general Rajeeve Mehra, arguing for the Centre, had sought two days' time to respond to queries. He, however, argued that RTE Act stipulates that a child, between the age group of 6 to 14, would be treated as a child covered under the legislation and, hence, the nursery admission would not be under its purview. But the court was unhappy with the delay by the Centre in clarifying its stand and said it should file an affidavit.

Earlier, the court had reserved its order on the PIL, filed by NGO Social Jurist, against two notifications, issued by the HRD ministry and Directorate of Education of the Delhi government, respectively. The notifications gave schools the power to formulate their own admission criteria, the PIL said.

During one of the hearings, HC had made it clear that its decision on the PIL would also affect nursery admissions for the 2013-14 academic session. Filed by Social Jurist, the PIL alleged that the notifications gave "a totally free hand to all unaided recognized private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria based on categorization of children...". However, the categorizations of children in admission have specifically been barred by the RTE Act, it said, adding that some schools still give preferences in admission on grounds such as religion, alumni and sibling.

A federation of private schools, however, opposed the PIL, saying that the private institutions cannot be forced to "toe" the diktat so far as the admission process is concerned.