Isolated and under pressure: Students suffer without help

Academic pressure, social stigma and family troubles are increasingly becoming stressors for students. Are support systems up to scratch?

As a Class 12 student, Poornima* feels like she is running a race that never ends. Her daily routine is jam-packed. If she intends to keep up with the syllabus and her classmates, she will have to spend almost every waking minute studying.  

She gets up at 6 am every day to work on mathematics and physics until school begins at 9 am. After nine hours of classes, which includes training for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), she returns to her thick books at 5 pm, spending six hours on her chemistry syllabus. 

“I was excited by the prospect of studying at an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),”  she says. Even though the odds were dizzying, Poornima thought she had a fighting chance — she was, after all, a bright student. 

What was unexpected was just how long these two years would seem. “I thought hard work would make me feel closer to my goal, but today, I feel farther. There is always more to study, more people to compete with…” she trails off.  At 16, she feels her childhood is long gone. “I have only one hour in a day free to eat and browse my phone,” she says. 

It was only recently that she realised that she was experiencing major depressive episodes. “I am always exhausted, teachers and parents expect you to be hopeful constantly but also give you devastating reality checks,” she says. 

Tens of lakhs of students preparing for entrance exams — be it the JEE, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) or the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams — are in a similar boat. The total intake of the 23 IITs across India is only 1.4% of those who sit for the exam. Similarly, only 6% of students who write NEET qualify for a medical seat. 

Sudha Manjunath, the mother of a student who attends coaching classes, explains the appeal. “It is a ticket to a brighter future, one without financial instability,” she says. 

The pressure to be extraordinary is now a standard for these students across the board — not just for those attempting competitive exams. In fact, psychiatric professionals, teenagers and teachers believe that India is at the cusp of a student mental health crisis.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), nearly 35 students died by suicide each day in 2021 — over 13,000 student suicides were reported that year. This is only the tip of the iceberg. 

The official number only hints at the magnitude of the crisis. A study published in the Lancet last year explains that broadly, the suicide rates reported by the NCRB are 37% lower than those reported by the Global Burden of Disease study. Only 63 suicides are reported by the NCRB out of every 100 in the country. 

More recently, 20 student suicides have been reported since the beginning of this year in India’s coaching capital Kota. Other alarming reports include the death of a university student in Bengaluru and a NEET aspirant along with his father in Chennai. These incidents put into focus yet again just how many adolescents and children end their lives due to burgeoning academic pressure, discrimination, bullying and financial difficulties.  

Despite these implications, parents spend large amounts of money on education in pursuit of elevated social and economic status.

Academic pressures

“There is a tendency for parents to push children to achieve what parents view as prestigious,” explains Maullika Sharma, a psychologist who counsels adolescents.

Education is often thought of as the vehicle to help both parents and children achieve this dream. A 2019 survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) found that Indians had the highest confidence in upward social mobility. The survey associated such confidence with faith in the country’s schooling system.

Close to 66% of respondents from India said most people in their country have access to good education.

However, parents and teachers often simplify or overlook the realities of the education system. “The economic structure of the education landscape has changed drastically from previous generations. Course fees are prohibitive for higher education courses, especially if you are from marginalised socio-economic, caste and religious backgrounds,” says Aratrika, a PhD student at Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

A government school teacher in Thandavpura, Mysuru district, puts into perspective just how much the pressures of education have changed and why this results in psychological distress. “It was good enough if we got 70% when I was growing up. We would be able to find a job. Now, children are being denied seats even when they score 94%,” she says.

Higher education still remains the best bet for intergenerational social mobility. However, it is not a guarantee. In fact, India ranked 76th out of 82 economies in the WEF’s social mobility index in 2020. The index measures movement in an individual’s personal circumstances in relation to their parents.

Social mobility is also varied among marginalised caste and religious groups according to a study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research. The study found that multigenerational mobility for Muslims in education and occupation has decreased in comparison with that of Hindus.

Competitive exams remain differentially proscriptive to students who study under different education boards. “I have to go to coaching classes to succeed. The syllabus that the Tamil Nadu board covers does not help with competitive exams,” says Sahil*, a first-year MBBS student in Chennai.

“Parents and teachers often maintain the expectation that children succeed despite these differences and the odds,” says educationist Niranjan Aradhya.

Implicit pressure

Poornima explains how this pressure is implicit. Teachers in her institute often fuel the notion that spending on education is a waste if children do not qualify in competitive exams.

Strong interpersonal relationships with peers and family can help some students cope. Physical exercise, favoured hobbies can also positively impact the mental health of students.

Yet, there is a tendency to deprioritise these emotional outlets. Poornima, for instance, was an avid volleyball player, participating both within her school and in inter-school events. “After Class 10, I discontinued all extra-curricular activities,” she says.

Highly competitive environments also do not allow for the creation of strong peer support networks as an IIM graduate recalls. “My internship was not converted into a job offer in my second year. I started noticing that my friends started to avoid or alienate me,” says the 34-year-old.

Support networks that were deeply impacted by the pandemic never quite recovered. Restrictions imposed caused a breakdown of communication channels between friend groups and parents. “Children are yet to recover from the adverse impact of the pandemic on their mental health. Many are still experiencing social anxiety,” explains Dr John Vijay Sagar, professor and head of the department of child and adolescent psychiatry, NIMHANS.

While social media did help maintain peer relationships, the nature of these platforms not only keeps adolescents from sharing their troubles authentically but also exposes them to a world of online outrage and shaming. The suicide of two students in Davangere after an intimate video went viral is an example of how shaming on social media can have a real-world impact. Students who experience psychological distress do not have the safety net of communicating with people who are non-judgemental.

Maullika Sharma adds, “There was a lot of trauma that students experienced during the last few years that could affect them in the years to come. The long-term effects of that have still to play out and be understood.”

It is during this time that they are learning and testing important life skills like logical reasoning, problem-solving, critical thinking and conflict resolution. “There is ample evidence to suggest that the brain develops until an individual is 25 years old,” says Dr Vijay Sagar.

Financial stressors

Children are also particularly sensitive to being perceived as financial burdens to their parents. After the death of Jagadeeswaran, a 19-year-old NEET aspirant and his father from Chennai, his close friend Sahil* has this to say, “I was privileged and he was not.”

Sahil is in the first year of his MBBS course. “Institutions are asking for Rs 25 lakh per year for an MBBS course. At the end of the course, parents would have paid about Rs 1.5 crore,” he explains.

Though his friend Jagadeeswaran had scored a higher mark in the NEET entrance exams, he was unable to pursue a medical course due to the exorbitant costs. Jagadeeswaran was adamant in his ambition to get a rank that would make him eligible for a government seat, not wanting to add to household expenses.

Although the cost of medical education has been on the decline around the world, in India, it is among the most expensive courses. According to a study published in the Lancet, medical education costs doubled between 2008 and 2018.

This increase is not limited to medical courses. On average, higher education alone accounts for 15.3% of the total household expenditure in rural areas and 18.4% in urban areas, according to a 2017 survey by the National Sample Survey Office. In south India, the corresponding figures are 43% and 38%.

More recently, parents are also bearing the additional expenses of coaching classes. Poornima’s family spends about Rs 1.5 lakh per annum, or a third of their household income, on her integrated course.

Far from improving the lives of children, the exam preparation industry has only commodified education further, explains Aradhya. “Rather than providing a conducive, supportive environment for a child to achieve their potential, coaching classes have a myopic approach to learning,” he says.

Most coaching centres advertise their top-ranking students. It is usually these select few who receive attention in a cohort, according to Namratha D*, a second-year student, who attends a JEE programme.

Instead of strengthening her chances, Namratha is afraid that opting for the course has discouraged her. “It is about who performs well in the weekly exams. The teachers do not engage with the rest of us. It makes me feel unworthy,” she says.

Prince Gajendrababu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System in Tamil Nadu, likens the trappings of the industry to a horse race or online gambling.

“It is incredibly easy to buckle under this pressure. Many students simply drop out. We hear of at least a handful of students who end their lives every year,” explains Namratha.

Mental health resources

The consequences of a highly pressurised environment have become clear across educational institutions. Most institutions resort to stop-gap measures instead of addressing the root cause of the issue, explains Anirban*, a postgraduate student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

A challenging job market and financial difficulties wreaked havoc on the campus. In a span of seven months, four students died by suicide in 2021.

Soon after, the institution sought to replace ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans to prevent deaths by hanging. “Being depressed is pretty common on the IISc campus. Many students have become desensitised to suicide. It is an epidemic but we are still looking for surface-level solutions,” says Anirban.

While premier institutions like IISc, IITs and IIMs do provide some access to mental health professionals, availing such support is not simple. For instance, an IIM graduate explains that though therapists visited the campus, they did so, “only for a few hours every week and awareness about such facilities was close to non-existent.”

Given that the World Health Organisation estimates that globally, 13% of 10 to 19-year-olds live with mental disorders, it is imperative to put these systems in place and ensure that students are aware of these resources.

Every student has a different threshold and has varied reactions to different scenarios, explains Dr Vijay Sagar. While it is difficult to say how much of each of these factors — trauma, academic stress and reduced social interaction — go into how children respond, developing mechanisms that students can access without facing stigma should be the first and most important step, both at homes and in educational institutions.

(*Names have been changed to protect their identities)

With inputs from E T B Sivapriyan in Chennai