Students On High In AP Suicides Record

Police records say it all. At least 49 of the 115 suicide cases recorded by the State Crime Records Bureau in the last three years were that of students. But what remains unexplained and unaccounted is the systemic failure of academic institutions, in which a person spends one-fourth of his/her life, to recognize and act on students’ concerns. Are our academic institutions indifferent to troubles that plague a student’s life, starting from heartbreaks to academic pressures, economic insecurities and discriminations based on caste, class and gender? The answer, unfortunately, seems yes. 

Of the many injustices the education system inflicts on students in the state, the most striking one seems to be that of limiting their choices by trying to fit them into a mould right from childhood. “Students are given only two career choices - medical or engineering studies. There is no attempt to accommodate diverse interests as everyone is expected to fit into the same mould,” said Diana Monteiro, a clinical psychologist from the city. 
    
And as the schedules of top private techno schools and intermediate colleges indicate, the path to gaining admission into leading technical or medical colleges is by rote learning for 18 hours a day. “The pressure to fit in is so high that students run away from these campuses. But they are brought back to the same institutions by parents who are ignorant of the effect of such strict academic set-ups. There are students who run away three or four times from the same corporate colleges and are brought back,” said Prof N Beena, a city psychologist. An examination of suicide cases reveals that apart from academic pressures, there could be other reasons like heartbreaks behind a student taking the extreme step. 

Though officials at educational institutions generally wash their hands off in such cases, counsellors and social scientists think otherwise. “Educational institutions which care for the welfare of students should not wash their hands off even if suicides seem to stem from heartbreaks. It is not because of a single point of failure that a person tries to commit suicide. Hence each of these cases requires investigation and implementation of immediate corrective measures,” said social scientist C Ramachandraiah. 
    
There could be a plethora of underlying factors that lead to suicides in undergraduate colleges and universities. “From not releasing scholarships to publically humiliating those who have failed in examinations by putting up their names on the notice board, educational institutions act in the most insensitive way to students who cannot perform,” said Prof G Haragopal, a human rights specialist. “Alarmingly, a majority of such students who go through this trauma come from less privileged backgrounds,” he added. 
    
Researchers, while admitting that suicides plague the student community at large, point out that a certain pattern emerges when one goes into the student’s backgrounds. Counsellors and human rights activists assert that students coming from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds are at a higher risk of suicides in hostile or unreceptive academic set-ups. In several cases, caste discrimination has been one of the main causes, a fact that educationists find alarming. 
    
Maintaining that educational institutions and the society in general should take up the responsibility for preventing suicides, human rights activist and professor at Delhi University, M S S Pandian said: “Suicide is not an individual’s failure. It is the failure of a society to keep the individual alive. The least that educational institutions could do is be democratic and inclusive to all students who walk in.” 

INN View 
The fact that a staggering 43% of suicides in the last three years involved students is indeed a worrying scenario and the government should immediately introduce some preventive mechanism and follow the High Court’s directive. There have been several recommendation reports on improving counselling systems inside universities that are gathering dust. Immediate steps should be taken to safeguard the lives of students.