'Performance suicides' by Kota coaching students shocking

Kota, a small town synonymous with coaching for IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) and other entrance examinations, has earned the eerie tag of ‘student suicides.’ As many as 60 students have committed suicide in the last five years, besides 10 so far in 2016. Reasons behind the suicides sound like a blame game with parents, teachers, society, education system etc pointing fingers at each other. And the umpteen suicide notes of students go unheard.

Nearly two lakh aspirants compete for 10,000 seats. Around 1.5 lakh students from all over the country come to Kota in southern Rajasthan to prepare for the entrance examinations for medical and engineering courses every year. But the estimated $45 million coaching industry of Kota is hesitant to attach this page of statistics to their balance sheets: 2016 (till July) – 10 suicides, 2015 – 17; 2014 – 8; 2013 – 13; and 2012 – 11 suicides.

The suicide pattern suggests that the students were driven to the wall either by their parents or teachers. A 13-member  committee of Madhya Pradesh Assembly visited Kota in June this year to study the administration’s steps to minimise suicides and stress levels among coaching students. It observed that a compulsory screening test by coaching institutes, counselling of students and parents on careers beyond IITs are a must.

The findings suggest that children are sent to Kota when they are 13-14 years old, which means they will spend five years away from  regular schools without playgrounds and, most importantly, friends. They negotiate maths and physics in pursuit of a future they have not envisaged. Their parents may end up spending Rs 15-20 lakh over five or six years. The two-year cost (including tuition and living expenses) comes to around Rs 6 lakh. Students also hear often about the struggle of repayment of loan.

Most students cite stress of looming exams or failure to fulfil expectations of their parents and teachers as reason in their suicide notes. A suicide note written by 17 year old Kriti Tripathi, who jumped to her death from a five-storey building in Kota on April 28, clearly hints at the environment inside the coaching centres. Kriti, who scored 144 marks in the JEE Mains 2016 results declared on April 27 – which was 44 marks higher than the 100-mark cut-off – wrote that the centres should be shut down. 

Her death note reads: “It’s not because of bad scores in JEE Mains. It’s because I’ve started hating myself to the extent that I want to kill myself.” In the letter, she has urged the Union government to shut coaching institutes as soon as possible. Many coaching centres in Kota have started meditation camps and yoga centres since the last few months but suicides continue.

Kota’s district administration came up with a specific set of guidelines in November last year for all coaching institutions. The guidelines included one-day break in a week, good hostel facility, music and sports classes and compulsory psychiatric and career counselling for each student along with parents prior to admission. But often, the musical instruments and sports equipment gather dust.

Kota Collector Ravi Kumar Surpur, who claims to have read dozens of suicide notes himself, chose to strike an emotional chord by writing a five page letter to institutes and parents of the aspirants. He advised, “Good career in engineering and medicine is more or less like certain insurance in terms of decent earning. However, art, entertainment, professional sports, literature, fitness, entrepreneurship, journalism, photography, music, adventure etc are new branches.”

Recently, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said in a public gathering in Kota that coaching institutes should turn sensitive and not act like running an emotionless shop. Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh said a body should be formed to regulate coaching institutes.

Court takes note
Besides the district and state-level authorities, the Rajasthan High Court also came into the scene and issued a notice to the state and district-level authorities, including the Rajasthan chief secretary, the Kota collector and the superintendent of police, seeking a reply on the action being taken to prevent suicides. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), too, summoned the Kota collector in this connection.
The founder of ‘Super 30,’ Anand Kumar, who coaches 30 ‘average’ students unfailingly every year for IIT, held parents and teachers equally responsible. He told Deccan Herald: “The exam pattern of IIT is very tough to crack and most of the students who commit suicide  are over burdened. The first step that should be taken is to change the pattern of exams instead of pressurising our students. The government should bridge the gap between 10+2 course and syllabus for IIT.”

Arvind Kalia, author and research guide, stressed that the SAP test followed by 2,500 colleges in USA should be replicated in India. The test result can have 100 students at one level and later a lottery will decide their entry.

Psychologists call the Kota-type suicides as ‘performance suicides.’ S S Nathawat, a renowned psychologist and Rajasthan University’s former head of the department of psychology said, “Nowadays, parents as well as teachers have high expectations from their wards  causing anxiety and performance fear. If a student is optimistic, resilient and has focussed goal, there will be minimal chances of suicide.”

Nathawat, who is closely monitoring the pattern of suicides, underlined the missing element of tradition that tuitions give them best teachers but lack mentors in their naive years.

If IIT-Kharagpur can show the door to the best brains who were not found fit for the course even after being selected, why can't coaching centres do the same? Interestingly, coaching centres blame the pattern of class 10 evaluation. Naveen Maheshwari, director at Kota’s Allen Coaching Centre, said, “we have kept an exit option now. If a student does not wish to continue, his/her fees will be returned.”