. The Academic stress scale consisting of fourty items representing five stressor domains namely; Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, Physical and Social was developed, standardized and administered. The findings showed that the adolescent girls and boys perceived high (57.9%) to very high (40%) levels of academic stress. There was significant difference between boys and girls in their academic stress in cognitive domain at 0.05 level (t=2.311*and p=0.022) and the girls had stress levels (31.71 ±3.67) higher than boys (30.45± 4.70) in this domain. The boys and girls also differed significantly in their physical stress at 0.05 level (t=2.213* and p=0.028) and boys had higher levels (28.23 ± 4.86) of physical stress when compared to the girls (26.86 ± 4.76). Among the five stressor domains, statistically significant association was found between gender and behavioural domain of academic stress at 0.01 level (χ 2=9.903** and p=0.007).There was no association found between gender and Cognitive, Affective, Physical and Social domains. The findings of the study indicates the need for intervention programmes for High school children in stress management and also stresses the need to revisit and revamp our examination system to provide a stress free learning environment to promote mental and general health of school children. Introduction The education system in India has become more achievement oriented with more focus on marks and grades, making children work for longer hours in schools and homes. Majority of the parents support this system and pressurize their children to perform better and achieve best or better marks or grades. The children are compelled to spend more hours in schools on all six days a week in Andhra Pradesh, some private schools conduct special classes on Sundays and public holidays. The long hours of schooling, with less scope for; play, sports, recreation, socialization, hobbies and travel, is causing more stress among school children. Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension caused by the acts of others, situations and tasks which demand a performance beyond a person’s capability or capacity. Academic stress involves mental distress regarding anticipated academic challenges or failure or even an awareness of the possibility of academic failure. During the school years, academic stressors may show in any aspect of the child’s environment: home, school, neighborhood, or friendship. Kouzma and Kennedy reported that school-related situations – such as tests, grades, studying, self-imposed need to succeed, as well as that induced by others – are the main sources of stress for high school students. The impact of academic stress is also far-reaching: high levels of academic stress have led to poor outcomes in the areas of exercise, nutrition, substance use, and self-care. Furthermore academic stress is a risk factor for psychopathology. For example, fourth, fifth and sixthgrade girls who have higher levels of academic stress are more likely to experience feelings of depression. The education system in India is highly competitive because of a lack of an adequate number of good institutions to accommodate the ever-expanding population of children. Hence children face competition at the entry level of pre-primary education, and thereafter at the end of every year, in the form of examinations that determine their promotion to the next grade. In classrooms teachers attempt to cover all aspects of a vast syllabus, often disregarding the comprehension level of students. Tenth grade terminates with first board examination – in which the competition with other students expands from the school-level to the state and even the national level. Studies established that chronic and continued exposure to stressful condition leads to emotional, physical and mental disturbance of the students. Persistent stress leads to low self-esteem of students, difficulty in handling situations, sleep disorders, decreased attention and abnormal appetite which eventually effects the academic achievement and personal growth of students. With this background an effort was made to assess the academic stress among the High school students in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. K. Anupama et al. Academic stress among high school children IP Indian Journal of Neurosciences, October-December, 2018;4(4):175-179 176 Methodology The study was an exploratory research designed to assess the levels of academic stress among the adolescent boys and girls aged between 14 to 15 years and studying 10th class in Tirupati Municipality, Chittoor District, and Andhra Pradesh. The list of High Schools in Tirupati was obtained from the office of the District Education officer. The study hours, coaching, disciplinary procedures, punishments, Parent Teacher interactions and student support system varies based on the school management, Hence four private (two CBSE and two State Board )and two Government schools (State Board)were selected from the list of schools randomly and the study was conducted from January to February 2015. Sample selection: From each Private English medium school 20 boys and 20 girls aged between 14 to 15 years were selected and from Government High schools 40 boys and 40girls were selected as they are Single sex schools, thus the sample consisted of 240 children of whom 120 were boys and 120 were girls. The students who were willing to participate with the consent of the parents were included in the study. Tools for data collection: The Academic stress scale consisting of fourty items representing five stressor domains namely; Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, Physical and Social was developed( based on Sinha et al.,(2001)’s thirty item Scale for Assessing Academic Stress), standardized and administered to 240 adolescent boys and girls. Each academic stressor domain consisted of eight items, the respondents were asked to rate each item on a five point scale as; Strongly Agree(SA)-5, Agree(A)-4, Do not Know(DK)3, Disagree (DA)-2, Strongly Disagree(SDA)-1. The Chronbach’s Alpha test (C A value=0.74) was used on a sub sample (n=40) for assessing the internal consistency of the Academic stress scale. Using independent sample t -test the difference between the academic stress of girls and boys was studied and the association between the stressor domain wise academic stress and gender was also examined.


Introduction
The education system in India has become more achievement oriented with more focus on marks and grades, making children work for longer hours in schools and homes. Majority of the parents support this system and pressurize their children to perform better and achieve best or better marks or grades. The children are compelled to spend more hours in schools on all six days a week in Andhra Pradesh, some private schools conduct special classes on Sundays and public holidays. The long hours of schooling, with less scope for; play, sports, recreation, socialization, hobbies and travel, is causing more stress among school children. Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension caused by the acts of others, situations and tasks which demand a performance beyond a person's capability or capacity.
Academic stress involves mental distress regarding anticipated academic challenges or failure or even an awareness of the possibility of academic failure. 1 During the school years, academic stressors may show in any aspect of the child's environment: home, school, neighborhood, or friendship. 2, 3 Kouzma and Kennedy reported that school-related situationssuch as tests, grades, studying, self-imposed need to succeed, as well as that induced by othersare the main sources of stress for high school students. 4 The impact of academic stress is also far-reaching: high levels of academic stress have led to poor outcomes in the areas of exercise, nutrition, substance use, and self-care. 5 Furthermore academic stress is a risk factor for psychopathology. For example, fourth, fifth and sixthgrade girls who have higher levels of academic stress are more likely to experience feelings of depression. 6 The education system in India is highly competitive because of a lack of an adequate number of good institutions to accommodate the ever-expanding population of children. Hence children face competition at the entry level of pre-primary education, and thereafter at the end of every year, in the form of examinations that determine their promotion to the next grade. In classrooms teachers attempt to cover all aspects of a vast syllabus, often disregarding the comprehension level of students. 7 Tenth grade terminates with first board examinationin which the competition with other students expands from the school-level to the state and even the national level. Studies established that chronic and continued exposure to stressful condition leads to emotional, physical and mental disturbance of the students. 11,12 Persistent stress leads to low self-esteem of students, difficulty in handling situations, sleep disorders, decreased attention and abnormal appetite which eventually effects the academic achievement and personal growth of students. 13 With this background an effort was made to assess the academic stress among the High school students in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Methodology
The study was an exploratory research designed to assess the levels of academic stress among the adolescent boys and girls aged between 14 to 15 years and studying 10th class in Tirupati Municipality, Chittoor District, and Andhra Pradesh. The list of High Schools in Tirupati was obtained from the office of the District Education officer. The study hours, coaching, disciplinary procedures, punishments, Parent Teacher interactions and student support system varies based on the school management, Hence four private (two CBSE and two State Board )and two Government schools (State Board)were selected from the list of schools randomly and the study was conducted from January to February 2015. Sample selection: From each Private English medium school 20 boys and 20 girls aged between 14 to 15 years were selected and from Government High schools 40 boys and 40girls were selected as they are Single sex schools, thus the sample consisted of 240 children of whom 120 were boys and 120 were girls. The students who were willing to participate with the consent of