by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The rise in student suicide cases in Kota district, a hub of coaching centers in India's western state of Rajasthan, has reached a concerning level.

The district has witnessed 22 student suicide cases so far this year, compared to 15 in 2022.

The incidents mainly involve students preparing for competitive entrance examinations for higher studies, particularly engineering and medical courses.

Depression, anxiety, and failure to deal with study pressure are the reasons often cited behind such suicides.

Some parents get their wards admitted to Kota for coaching classes at the age of 15 or 16 when they still are enrolled in 9th or 10th grades, aiming at the entrance exams for admissions in prestigious government-run Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) or medical colleges with affordable tuition fee compared with the private colleges and universities offering similar courses.

It is estimated that over 200,000 students move to Kota every year to take coaching classes. Over the years, a large number of coaching centers, students' hostels, hotels, restaurants and other ancillary services have sprung up in the district.

In a bid to check suicides by young students, the Kota district administration lately decided to install sensors in hostel rooms and guest accommodations that sound an alarm in the event of an attempted suicide, said media reports.

Following the guidelines issued by the Rajasthan High Court over the rising incidence of such suicides, the Kota district administration also called for arranging psychological evaluation of the students and their regular counseling.

In one of the most recent cases, a 17-year-old boy from the eastern state of Bihar committed suicide by hanging himself inside his room on Aug. 5 in Kota. The boy ended his life barely a couple of hours after his father visited him.

The deceased boy, a student in the 12th grade, had joined one of the coaching centers in Kota in March to prepare for the engineering entrance examination to be held next year. On the fateful day, the boy's father reportedly scolded him for not paying much attention to his studies.

A similar suicide had taken place on Aug. 15. The deceased boy had been in Kota for over a year, and was preparing for the engineering entrance examination. Earlier, two more such cases took place on Aug. 4 and 10.

Taking note of the rising trend of suicides by young students, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot held an emergency meeting on Friday.

Gehlot said the shocking numbers highlighted the burden on students. Blaming the parents partly for such suicides, he said, "Enrolling Class 9 and 10 students in coaching institutes puts an extra burden on them since they also have to appear for regular school (Board) exams. You are committing a crime in a way."

One of the key reasons behind these suicides is the parents' pressure on the students to crack the competitive entrance examinations by any means, said Manik Sawhney, who runs five students' hostels in Kota, noticing in recent years there has been an influx of students coming to Kota from different parts of the country to take coaching classes.

"In some cases, parents from rural backgrounds even sell off their lands or other immovable properties to fund their kids' education, and then put so much psychological pressure on the kids to crack the examinations," he added.

As per the latest data, more than 2 million students appeared for the medical courses entrance examination this year, but only 1,145,976 students could clear the medical entrance.

The latest federal government data shows that there has been an 82 percent rise in the number of medical colleges, from 387 in 2014 to 704 in 2023, but "the number of students aspiring for engineering and medical courses in the country is much larger than the number of seats available within the country," said Sawhney.

"I can say that every year such students get multiplied by four times, where the numbers of seats in engineering and medical courses get increased by two times only," said Sawhney. Enditem

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