Credible show of the students : Need for career counselling
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 26, 2025 -

It is an annual affair, but there is always something special about the time when the Class X or Class XII examination results are announced.

The Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur has done just that in announcing the results of the Class XII exams this year with the pass percentage recording a healthy 94 percent.

This is a slight dip from the previous year which had an impressive 97.63 pass percentage.

Statistics don’t lie and one hopes that the excellent showing dished out by the students is taken to its logical conclusion and none of them get lost on the journey called life.

A journey which can come under heavy pressure from different forces including the push and pull to continue excelling from the parents and relatives, peer pressure, the pressure to zero in on what one wants to do in one’s life, the pressure of deciding which line of profession one should take up etc.

The career part may come a little later in life, but the Class XII stage is perhaps the best time to start charting out the roadmap for the future and this is where good counselling or career counselling comes into play.

How many of the schools in Manipur have career guidance cells or career counselling classes ?

Tough to say and in most cases it is the parents, guardians and relatives who double up as career counsellors, deciding what a young student should take up for further studies and what the young child should do later in life.

This is perhaps where the Government may step in and make career counselling a necessary component in every school.

Excellent investment it would turn out to be for it can help the student determine her strength and weaknesses at the crucial stage in her life.

As in the past years, a large number of students will also proceed for their further studies outside the State and this is a point which should not just be brushed aside.

Not the first time that The Sangai Express has commented on this and wouldn’t be the last either.

Why do parents and elders of the family feel compelled to send their children outside Manipur once they have crossed the Class XII stage ?

For those who have cracked NEET, JEE or any of the other exams for professional courses, this question may not arise, but not everybody is cut out to be doctors or engineers and not everybody wants to follow this line.

There would be many, particularly students from the Arts and Commerce stream, who have to go in for further studies and invariably thousands of students from Manipur will go to cities and universities located outside Manipur.

For the moneyed people, sending their children outside will not be much of a problem, but not everyone is that well placed and the validity of the question, why so many feel constrained to send their children outside Manipur once they have finished their Class XII.

Food for thought here and the answer rests not only with the Government, but with the people themselves too.

It is also heartening to note that students from Government schools recorded a pass percentage of 89.95 and this is saying something a lot.

A credible reflection on the School Fagathanshi mission launched by the then BJP led State Government one may say and perhaps this is where the Government would seriously need to look back at the decades gone by when a number of Government run schools managed to produce rank holders in the Class X examination and in the then Pre-University exams.

Perhaps this is the right time for the Government to look back and study why Government schools have come to be identified with pathetic shows, year after year.

Let the good showing of 2025 not be just a flash in the pan but becomes a habit, a habit of producing students who can get through the Class X and Class XII examinations.

The Class XII result is out and one can expect the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur to declare the Class X examination results in the coming days and one wonders whether Manipur will witness yet another round of ‘fierce competition’ amongst the schools to attract the brightest students with freebies.

Annual affair it is, but this is the time for everyone to raise questions which can be relevant to the future of the young students and hence the place.