Every generation believes that young people today have it easier than those who came before them. And in some ways, they probably do. They have access to opportunities, information, and experiences that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. The world is more connected, knowledge is more accessible, and possibilities that once seemed out of reach now feel genuinely attainable for many. Yet there is another side to this story, one that is harder to articulate but increasingly hard to look away from.
Young people today are growing up in an environment where expectations rarely switch off. Achievement is constantly visible. Comparison is not something that happens at the end of a term anymore; it happens in real time, on screens, in comment sections, in the arithmetic of likes and followers. Platforms built to connect people have also, not entirely by accident, become very efficient at making people feel behind.
Importance of mental health
It is something we have built into the texture of everyday life, for young people and adults alike. This is precisely why mental health has become a conversation that schools must be part of. What was once considered a private matter, handled within families or not addressed at all, has gradually moved into public conversation. Parents are talking about it. Educators are mulling over it. Policymakers are engaging with it as well.
CBSE's recent focus on mental health in schools arrives in this context. It is not raising a new issue so much as giving formal shape to something that many teachers and families have been navigating, often on instinct and without much support or structure, for quite some time. The value of the policy is less in its novelty and more in what it signals: that a student's emotional state is not a private footnote to their academic life. It is integral to the picture. Announcements, though, are the straightforward part. What tends to be far more difficult is the work that follows: the steady process of embedding these ideas into the day-to-day life of schools.
In many schools, mental health conversations often begin with counselling, workshops and awareness initiatives. These efforts are valuable, but they also open the door to broader questions about how wellbeing is experienced across everyday school life. Whether help-seeking feels natural and accessible for students who need support. And if the teachers have the confidence to respond well when a student seems overwhelmed. Whether parents are paying attention before things tip into crisis rather than after.
Lasting change will come from the continued efforts of schools to recognise diverse abilities and support students in more holistic ways. Yet this cannot happen in isolation. The conditions that affect young people's mental health include family dynamics, friendships, financial stress at home, social media, the pressure of growing up in a culture that treats achievement as identity, and all of it travels into the classroom with the student each morning. Any policy that ignores this broader context will inevitably struggle against itself.
The real measure of the initiative's impact will not show up in a compliance report. It will show up when a fifteen-year-old feels safe enough to tell someone they are struggling, before it becomes serious. When a parent starts treating their child's emotional life as something that needs tending, not just management. And finally, when a teacher notices something is wrong and actually knows what to do with that observation. These outcomes are harder to track. They do not fit neatly into monitoring frameworks. But they are the ones that will matter the most.
There is also a bigger question underneath all of this, one that schools have circled for years without quite settling: 'What is education actually trying to produce?' Academic results matter. They open doors that are otherwise hard to open. But over time, public conversations about education have often placed considerable emphasis on examinations and academic outcomes, sometimes at the expense of a broader understanding of student development.
Education, at its most useful, gives young people some capacity to understand themselves. To navigate adversity without losing their footing and to make appropriate judgments under pressure. Further, it also helps tolerate uncertainty rather than being flattened by it. These things do not appear on mark sheets, but they show up everywhere else in a student’s life.
The shift in conversation around mental health is real. A decade ago, this piece would not have been written, and if it had been, it would not have found much of an audience. There is more awareness now, more willingness to take the subject seriously, and young people themselves are often more honest about their inner lives than earlier generations were expected to be.
Is mental health awareness enough?
Awareness, though, is a necessary starting point, not a sufficient one. What happens next depends on whether schools, families, and communities treat this moment as a genuine opening and ensure that the conversation continues to translate into meaningful change. Wellbeing either becomes part of how education is understood and practised, or it stays on the margins, taken seriously in principle and squeezed out in practice whenever the pressure is on.
CBSE's efforts are an important step, and their full impact will be shaped by the collective commitment of schools, families and communities.
Because education was always meant to be about more than grades and job offers. It was meant to help young people figure out how to live. That idea never went away. That ambition has always been there, somewhere in the background. It might finally be getting the attention it deserves.
(The author is an educationist and philanthropist)
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK
