Appalling trend in India’s coaching hub

Last week, an 18-year-old JEE aspirant died of suicide in Rajasthan’s Kota, on the very day Prime Minister Narendra Modi told students preparing for board exams to “compete with yourself and not with peers.’’ In a note to her parents, she had said she wasn’t up to writing the exam and that she was a loser. A NEET aspirant in Kota also died in similar circumstances. As many as 29 students have reportedly taken their own lives in Kota in the last one year. This city is the country’s coaching factory, working with the objective of mass producing winners in competitive entrance exams. There have been cases of suicide from other parts of the country too, and the exam season is taking a toll. Many factors make students dread their exams and think of ways to run away from them, and also from their lives.

Most students who go in for coaching in Kota are from the middle class, but there are others, too. All of them are driven by the desire to excel in competitive exams. In many cases, the students are driven more by their parents’ aspirations than their own. Once they are in the rat race, peer pressure also gets to them. While aspirations have kept rising everywhere year by year, there is also the sense that educational and employment opportunities are shrinking. Parents are under social pressure to see that their children are enrolled in the best courses. Engineering and management courses are considered more prestigious and rewarding than courses in the arts and humanities. A student’s aptitude finds no role in the selection of courses. Many students are put in the pressure cooker from their school days when they are unable to know what their interests are. In Kota, the students live away from their families and that adds to the pressure. Students everywhere are under pressure, but Kota presents an extreme situation.

Even those who manage to pass the entrance tests are exhausted by the hard grind they are subjected to. It has been noted that the pressure affects their creativity and even the ability to cope with life. The experience impacts the mental health of students and many lose their self-esteem and confidence. Guidelines have been issued for the coaching centres in Kota to follow but they have not helped in stopping the tide of suicides. The Kota coaching system needs an overhaul altogether. There is hardly a facility for counselling students and parents in most places. The element of joy has gone out of education and it is a serious challenge for most. Present attitudes to education need to changed, too.