The number of student suicides in our country is alarming. All these show that something is not right. Why Class 10 examinations should be the deciding block for students as to which career they want to pursue? Why should standard 12 exams decide which college is one eligible for? Why is any one rank 1? and what is the problem in rank 2?
Almost 6000 Indian students killed themselves in 2006. 16,000 in last three years! That’s almost a 35% jump from 2 years before. Board exams, various entrance tests, professional school tests, even high school monthly exams are creating a spate of suicides in India’s student population, an age group that one would normally associate with potential and promise.
The suicide notes from some of those who killed themselves had clues to what drove their tortured souls to take the final plunge:
..I will come back as a ghost and harass my teacher..
Late in 2006, parliament member Naveen Jindal raised this question in India’s parliament, asking why there was a rising sucide trend amongst Indian students and how the government was tackling the issue. The answers he received from the minister of Human Resource Development open a window into an antiquated, retrogressive, and retarded thinking pattern that pervade and plague the way India’s education system tests its students’ performances. Here is what the Human Resource Minister said the central education board was doing to address the ‘examination-related stress’
1. Launching of a Helpline before the commencement of examination
2. 15 minutes of additional time to students for reading the question paper
3. Simplification of question papers in some of the important subjects
4. Sample question papers to familiarize students with the nature of questions
The clue here is ‘exam-related stress’ and the education board’s remedies are all ‘exam-related’. That examfixation mindset is exactly what is fueling student suicides. It is that same exam-fixation that is also fueling an expanding out-of-school tuition trade that has become a parallel industry to the education system, forcing students to spend their waking hours competing for a few coveted spots at good colleges and universities. Add to that the absurd policies of reservations and quotas based on castes and religions instead of economic backgrounds.
The current surge in student suicides is in large part a legacy of a failing education system, which, instead of making education a joyful experience, has turned it into a fiercely competitive firewalk that stresses the students out into taking the ultimate copout step, by quitting on everything, quitting on parents, quitting on friends and killing themselves. For students and teachers alike, the K-12 journey seems to have become a cheerless, oppressive and a melancholic experience.
India’s education system, by focusing too much on the exams, is creating those brick walls which are supposed to make our kids more competitive and smarter. But some of those brick walls are political, social and economic and some of the kids are unable to comprehend the complexities and unfairness of a system which comes with a baggage of legacy issues that have nothing to do with education or opportunities, but everything to do with election politics and vote banks.
It would be easy to dismiss student suicides as an isolated psychological problem faced by the weaker-minded amongst our younger population. But 10,000 student suicides in a year also means 10,000 devastated families and several thousand more friends who will carry those scars and that grief for a lifetime.
That’s deep.
true, very true
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