“I can’t take it anymore.”
“Sorry for being weak, and not showing courage, but I am tired now, no strength left”
These are excerpts from letters of students who committed suicide bogged down by the expectations and the pressure to get into IIT.
With less than 6 months remaining for the JEE examinations which act as a gate to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, the stakes have never been higher. With a selection ratio of less than 3%, getting an admission into an IIT only gets shinier with a deteriorating success ratio and the pressure is showing on the students. Kota, which has been the hub of IIT coaching since the early 2000s records over 1.75 lakh aspirants annually into any of the many coaching centres that are present in the city. The coaching institutes in a bid to maximise their profits are expanding and creating a “mini Kota” in places like Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Maximizing profits being their sole moto and having little value of a student’s life has seen an upturn in student suicides. A shocking 50 deaths in just 60 days of students enrolled in the money-minded institutions have been recorded in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone whereas Kota saw 17 suicides in 2016 and 12 students have committed suicide in 2017 according to National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB). Students which are the future of our country are being driven to suicide at an alarming rate.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/…/story-eVmULTaYCUDi4Gdbry4MS…
The latest victim of this rat race was a 17-year old boy Samyukhta, who had scored 95% in 12th and enrolled himself into one of the premier IIT coaching institutes in Andhra Pradesh.
Tired of the constant jibes by his teachers who insisted he wasn’t good enough and in the face of mounting pressure chose to end his life by jumping off a building. Such heartbreaking cases are recorded accord across India. Such jibes by teachers are something a Science student will face almost day to day in face of mounting peer pressure every day. As someone who not so long ago was part of the same rat race can only testify to this fact.
These coaching centres who promise the moon to the students represent the perennial struggle of the Indian middle class and it’s dream to rise above mediocrity. Sadly this burden falls on their teenage son/daughter who is still finding their way through life, to bring their family to the upper-class category. As soon as the results of competitive exams are declared, all coaching institutes put up front page ads of the students who cleared the exam through their institutes and also consist of how the students would have failed if they had chosen any other institute. However, the institutes omit one little information from their advertisements. The thousands of students who failed through their institutes. They also don’t tell the story of how some students gave up and chose to end their life.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/…/story-OZvFPNwvImIVFTlHPYbje…
It’s not that only underachievers chose to take the extreme step of ending their life. Kriti Tripathi, one of the students at a premier coaching institute in Kota, secured 144/360 in JEE Mains and thus comfortably cleared the cutoff and now had to prepare for JEE Advance, the final hurdle to her ultimate dream. But just days before JEE Advance she committed suicide. She was competing with almost 2 Lakh students for just 20,000 seats. In Kota, where students score above 300, a score of 144 is considered poor. Almost every coaching institute has 8 batches i.e from A1 to A8 where students are segregated. As one moves in descending order, the quality of students in terms of aptitude deteriorates. Students in the top batches are provided with all kinds of luxuries like a scooter for traveling, AC rooms, premium quality food, 24X7 access to faculty and so on. The lower batches have poor facilities and more importantly poor faculties. They just fill up the multi-million dollar industry and the institutes have no hopes from them and instead focus on making them pass their 12th despite the students paying the same fees as of the students of the top batches. Such discrimination has proven to be counterproductive time and again. The next thing bogging down the students is the investment made on them by their parents and the huge expectations on Return of Investment. A student enrolled in a two-year course in Kota ends up shelling out around a whopping INR 6 lakh by the end of his/her course.
One of the foremost reasons for students struggling to adapt to life in Kota is the rude shock they get when the results of their first exam at their new institute are declared. Generally, it is very easy to score in 10th as the respective state boards freely distribute marks. CBSE too is lenient in 10th and many students end up scoring a perfect 10 CGPA(about one lakh students obtained 10 CGPA in 2016). This leads to rising expectations from parents thinking that their child is very intelligent and creates a mirage that the student is ready for IIT coaching. The student faces harsh reality soon and cannot face such low marks (which are generally below 20%) but by that time, it’s too late. He/she can’t quit the coaching institute because they won’t be refunding any money and back home the expectations skyrocket day by day that their child will surely clear the exam.
This leads to students lying about their marks to their parents and claiming they are very happy and also in some cases resort to cheating during exams to keep both the institute and parents happy. The boards freely distributing marks in 10th coupled with no sort of screening or aptitude test during admission in Kota leads to disastrous consequences. The institutes don’t conduct any aptitude test whatsoever to check whether the student is good enough for Science stream or not because if a particular institute refuses admission to a student, there are hundred other institutes circling like vultures who would gladly admit the student.
The attitude of the people who run these institutes is even worse. RK Verma, the owner of Resonance Eduventures, feels that the blame must solely lie on parents and students. He feels that students are pampered a lot these days. They face no hardships. He feels that if the kids were beaten regularly in their childhood both by teachers and parents for scoring low marks in school would train the students for hardships and increase their tolerance. It’s worrying that the future of our country lies in the hands of such people.
No wonder, the number of suicide cases in Kota has only gone up and with such attitude, it will only continue to rise.
( http://www.huffingtonpost.in/…/life-and-death-in-ota_n_102…)
Creation of the survival of the fittest environment by the institutes and over 100 students stuffed in one batch, where students are discriminated on the basis of their marks has an adverse effect on the students where they see their fellow mates as their rivals which results in students making no friends at all and a sense of loneliness starts creeping in them. Also, if a student has completed his/her studies for the day(the daily target is tracked by the institutes), he is encouraged to knock on other hostel rooms and encourage students of rival institutes to go watch a movie or hang out somewhere so that the other student is dissuaded from studies. Such practices send a wring signal to the young minds and would mold them in such a way that they would never be able to make friends.
Imagine yourself in an 8*8 ft room sitting on a chair with piles of books/sheets lying unsolved on the table in front of you for two years. The condition of students in Kota is deplorable. In the face of rising suicides, instead of finding ways to reduce a student’s burden or provide him/her counseling, hostel in Kota have instead installed anti-suicide fans” which when loaded over 20kg, will fall down and trigger an alarm. But are anti-suicide fans really the only thing which would stop suicides? Hostels also lock down students and prevent them from forming groups or going from one room to another so that they don’t waste their time at all.
Institutes also hire scouts to find potential toppers and lure them into their institute. There are ample cases where toppers of other institute are offered vast sums of money and perks to join a rival institute just days before the exams are scheduled to start.
(https://www.thequint.com/…/why-kta-kills-7-reasons-behind-…)
It’s about time both the Government and parents step in. The future of this country cannot be allowed to rest on the mercy of such institutes. Students are not slaves and that message must be sent clear-cut by the government and steps must be taken to regulate higher secondary education.
A stroll through any IIT coaching institute would get you many students who are pursuing IIT just because of peer pressure. “It’s my Father’s dream that I join IIT” resonates throughout the institute but when asked about what they really want to do? The students would fumble for answers because honestly, they have never thought about what they want from life because they have never felt that free.
