RISING STUDENT SUICIDES IN INDIA

SCENARIO

Every hour one student commits suicide in India, with about 28 such suicides reported every day, according to data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The NCRB data shows that 10,159 students died by suicide in 2018, an increase from 9,905 in 2017, and 9,478 in 2016. Maharashtra had the highest number of student suicides in 2018 with 1,448, almost 4 suicides every day followed by Tamil Nadu with 953 and Madhya Pradesh with 862. Between 1999 and 2003, 27,990 students ended their lives; 28,913 between 2004 and 2008; and 36,913 between 2009 and 2013. The 2014-18 period saw a 26% jump from the preceding 5-year period to 46,554.

STUDENT SUICIDE

Suicides in premier institutes such as IITs hold a mirror to the education system. As per data from the Department of Higher Education, under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), 27 students across 10 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) committed suicide between 2014 and 2019. IIT Madras tops the list, with seven students losing their lives during this period. In April last year, 19 students in Telangana committed suicide in a week after the State’s intermediate results were announced. Two years back, in another tragic incident in Madhya Pradesh, 12 students including six girls ended their lives in a single day after the release of the board exam’s results. Kota, primarily known as a coaching centre hub, has seen a series of student deaths every year. As per the data available from the district administration, 58 students ended their lives in Kota between 2013 and 2017.

EDUCATION SYSTEM

The rising number of these cases provokes a serious discussion on the way in which outcomes of education are perceived in India. The instrumental value of education in India is its potential in generating socio-economic and cultural capital through a promise of decent job opportunities in the future. But the education system has not been successful in generating enough job options. For instance, the International Labour Organisation’s World Employment and Social Outlook Trends Report of 2018 says that in 2019, the job status of nearly 77% of Indian workers would be vulnerable and that 18.9 million people would be unemployed. With their job future being so bleak, students are put under constant pressure to perform. They have failed to learn to enjoy the process of education. Instead, the constant pressure and stress has generated social antipathy and detachment among them.

CONCLUSION

Sociologist Emile Durkheim had famously hypothesised that suicides are a result of not just psychological or emotional factors but social factors as well. With a loss of community and other social bonds, students in schools, colleges and coaching centres end up taking their lives. It is high time we seek to reinvent our educational ecosystem in ways that impregnate new meanings, new ideas of living, and renewed possibilities that could transform a life of precarity into a life worth living.

By – Anjani Sharma