The push for evidence-driven compliance risks sidelining teachers’ natural counselling roles and raises deeper questions about trust in educators and the true purpose of education
Published Date – 10 February 2026, 11:23 PM
By Chada Rekha Rao
Pariksha Pe Charcha (PPC), an initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appears to have snatched away the role of teachers. Does PPC suggest that the teachers of the nation have failed as counsellors? This question arises naturally when one observes how the programme is positioned and implemented. For years, teachers have been counselling students — emotionally, academically, and psychologically — without any formal programme, circular, or requirement to submit evidence. Subject teachers guide students automatically. Principals interact with students regularly.
Students are encouraged to talk, share, and express fear and anxiety. Teachers are available 24×7 for doubt clearance. Some teachers even wake students at 4 am and remind them to get up and study. These are voluntary gestures from teachers. Then why this sudden need? If teachers and schools are already doing this, and often much more, what exactly is the programme trying to establish?
CBSE circulars ask schools to upload photos and videos as evidence showing that schools have screened PPC and that teachers and students have watched the Prime Minister’s interaction with students of Grades 6 to 12. Google forms are sent and must be filled. This one word — Evidence — has changed the entire purpose of the programme, and the target classes are no longer in sync with reality.
With Grades 10 and 12 students at home to prepare, schools screen PPC for Grades 9 and 11. However, many schools conduct Grades 9 and 11 exams alongside the 10th and 12th board exams, placing these students too on preparatory leave. As a result, despite the target group being Grades 10, 12 and also 9, 11, the actual audience often becomes students of Grades 6, 7, and 8. The objective is defeated.
Target Group and Reality
PPC is projected as a programme meant to address board examination stress. Yet, the very students under board exam pressure are not present in school. Schools will not — and should not — call Grades 10 and 12 students during preparatory leave. Their schedules are tight, revision plans are fixed, and any disturbance at this stage affects concentration.
Moreover, with exams starting from February 17, no school will encourage board students to attend PPC screenings and disturb their study schedule. So, who is PPC actually reaching? Not the students for whom it is designed.
Timing: The Biggest Flaw
PPC should ideally begin months earlier, around October, before the Dussehra break. That is the time when motivation works. That is when students can actually utilise the Dussehra break productively. That is when teachers integrate homework, guidance, counselling, and motivation meaningfully. By February, students are already in survival mode — revising, practising, solving practice test papers, and managing time minute by minute. Motivation at this stage becomes noise. Teachers understand this. Schools understand this. But the timing of PPC ignores this academic reality.
Before PPC, schools were engaged in counselling organically. There was no pressure to register participants, upload screenshots, or submit evidence. That was real counselling — not event-based counselling. Now, it’s mandatory for schools to make special arrangements, get more gadgets to telecast the programme, upload screenshots and submit evidence.
The success of PPC is measured not by student impact but by numbers: How many registered, how many attended, how many screenshots were uploaded. This is not education; it is data collection
Government departments have been assigned targets for registration, and this pressure trickles down to schools. Schools repeatedly message parents to register students. Staff members use personal mobile phones to increase register numbers. Instructional hours are converted into registering the students. Class time is lost. Teaching time is lost. Emotional connect is replaced by administrative urgency — all in the name of evidence.
From Counselling to Compliance
What was meant to reduce stress has become a compliance exercise. The success of PPC is measured not by student impact but by numbers: How many registered, how many attended, and how many screenshots were uploaded. This is not education. This is data collection. And teachers — who should be mentoring students — are turned into agents for registration drives. Are teachers being declared inadequate? Implicitly, PPC sends a troubling message. If teachers were effective counsellors, why is there a need for centralised counselling?
If schools were already addressing exam stress, why mandate and monitor such programmes? This indirectly questions the professional capacity of teachers. They are trusted to teach subjects, conduct examinations, and evaluate performance — but not trusted to counsel their own students? This is a dangerous narrative.
CBSE as a Campaigning Body?
Why is the central government utilising CBSE as a campaigning body? This question cannot be ignored. Students participating in PPC today will be voters in three to four years. When schools are pushed to register students, screen programmes compulsorily, and submit evidence, the line between education and political messaging becomes blurred. Schools are meant to be neutral spaces. Even the perception that CBSE is being used for outreach rather than academics is damaging.
Education Needs Trust, Not Targets
Education does not function on targets. Counselling does not work by compulsion. Motivation cannot be forced through circulars. Teachers do not need to be replaced as counsellors. They need to be trusted. If PPC is to continue, it must complement teachers — not override them. It must respect academic calendars — not disrupt them. It must focus on purpose — not proof.
Uncomfortable Question
Pariksha Pe Charcha raises an uncomfortable question. Not about students. Not about examinations. But about trust. Does the system believe that teachers have failed as counsellors? Or has the system failed to trust teachers? Until this is addressed, PPC will remain a programme where targets are met, evidence is submitted, but the real objective is lost.
(The author is an academic. Views are personal)
