Improve mental well-being of students to curb suicidal tendencies

The incidents of suicides by students in various parts of the country are in stark contrast to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s larger vision of making a new and developed India with youth power. It also makes one also wonder if the government’s much publicised programmes like ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ and ‘Maan Ki Baat’- PM Modi’s monthly radio broadcast to countrymen, in which he is often heard giving students and parents suggestions on how to take exams without any stress, are really succeeding.

While one does not deny the usefulness of such efforts by the Pm, the increasing suicides by students over the last one year has come as a matter of great concern for parents, who invest time, money and energy on their children to make them stand on their own feet in an otherwise highly competitive job market.

In this context, the reported suicide by six intermediate students, including three girl students, on May 9 in separate incidents in Hyderabad and Nizamabad district of Telangana, has shocked the nation. The deceased were reportedly upset over their poor showing in exams. The sad development came in the wake of declaration of intermediate first-year and second-year examination results. What is even more worrying is the fact that some of the students taking the extreme step were in the age category of 16 to 17 years.

This begs the question of how things came to such a sorry pass. In fact, the New Education Policy 2020 or NEP has not gone much beyond reducing academic stress among students which experts say, is not the only cause of rising suicides by students. One also needs to ask if the NEP which talks about 360 degree holistic development of students has also taken into account the issue of mental illness among them and how to cope with it and other related issues like depression, addictions leading to suicidal tendencies and the extreme step of suicides by students.

Post pandemic, a large number of students have been victims of psychological and mental issues. Detached from the physical world and from normal schooling for over one and a half years, students at the secondary and senior secondary levels have been the worst sufferers. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures will vouch for it: About 12,526 students committed suicide in 2020, followed by 13,089 in 2021. Students’ suicides comprised 7.40% of all suicides in the country between 2017 and 2019. It went up to 8.20 per cent by 2020 and came down slightly to 8 per cent in 2021. The bottom line of this is that incidents of students’ suicides have reportedly increased by 32.15 per cent since 2017.

According to latest data from the NCRB’s ADSI report 2021, over 13,000 students died by suicide in 2021 in India at the rate of more than 35 every day, a rise of 4.5 per cent from the 12,526 deaths in 2020 with 864 out of 10,732 suicides being due to ‘failure in examination’. Since 1995, India lost the highest number of students to suicides in 2021. About 2 lakh of them have died by suicide in the past 25 years.

Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of student suicides in 2021 with 1,834, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Further, as per Ministry of Education, 122 students from IITs, NITs, central universities and other central institutions also died by suicide over the 2014-21 period. All these statistics should serve as a warning signal for authorities. There is an urgent need to address the issue of mental health among students beyond academics.

There are other factors as well such as aspirations, social and economic status of students, shaping of identity of individual students, their dreams, relationships and habits which need to be addressed. All these, according to experts, will help students develop a positive perception about themselves as someone unique in society and help curb negative tendencies like suicides. But, nothing is likely to work in isolation. The state and central governments have to join hands to deal with the serious issue keeping in mind the long term interests of student communities and the country as a whole. A revised draft of an updated NEP with a more rigorous focus on mental wellbeing of students will go a long way in the creation of an intellectually strong and mentally healthy tribe of students capable of taking on the challenges of new India.