Students and Suicides

8/8/2019 Students and Suicides

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Students and Suicides

Manas Gupta B.Tech, III Year

Department of Chemical EngineeringIndian Institute of Technology Roorkee


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A n act of SuicideTo people, what meaning does an actof suicide hold?It is killing oneself deliberately.

But to a person committing this actof self-destruction, what does this act

mean?It is ending of a Pain, a Trauma or aStress.

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F acing the F acts.India has one of the highest suicide rates inthe world.

In the year 2007, the recent year for whichthe official figures are available, almost 6248students committed suicide.

That is, an average of 17 students killedthemselves everyday.

West Bengal (1138) and Maharashtra (793)lead in students suicides followed by AndhraPradesh (699), Karnataka (507), Gujarat(353), Madhya Pradesh (326), Kerala (275),Uttar Pradesh ( 274) and Tamil Nadu (249).

Source: National Crime Records Bureau .3


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F acing the F acts.Among the Indian cities, Delhi andBengaluru lead the scenario followed by Mumbai and Chennai.

According to a research study conducted by Harvard University and Jaslok Hospital,

Mumbai in the year 1990 revealed that :-o 16% of Mumbai students were depressed- that was

2% more than the students of Boston.o 8% of them were suicidal.

Today 10 years later, researchers areexpecting the things to be worse.

As of 26 th January 2010, 25 students havetaken their lives.

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F acing the F acts.Most of the students who try to commitsuicide or complete it are from the middleclass and lower class families.

Their parents are either uneducated or poorly educated.

Even the centers of excellence like the IITshave a record of student suicides.

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W hy Suicide?

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ExamsA 2006 study of 231 teenagers by AnuradhaSovani, a psychologist at University of Mumbai showed that students were morefrightened of EXAMS than accidents,earthquakes or bombs.

Students are afraid of failure in theexaminations, poor marks and the hardshipsthey would face because of all this in front of their parents.

Also, reasons like suspension from schools,devoid of giving examination, excessiveinsults from teachers are some of the otherreasons for which students have taken thisextreme step.

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A cademic PressuresAccording toeducationists andresearchers,students are finding

it difficult to handleexam pressures.

Some studentsdescribe a

combination of class12 board exams andcompetitive examsas a hard one tohandle.

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But is it the examsalone that pressurize thestudents ?

The answer is possibly NO.Parental pressures and expectations and the Education system , to somedegree, is also responsible for thisdistressing situation.

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I want you to be Rank 1Mumbai based Rhea Timbekar came acrossa case where the child had not eaten for 4days. Childs parents were upset with himbecause he got 89% in exams and stoodthird in class, compared to coming first inprevious years.

Needless to say, there are endless caseswhere parents force their children to excelacademically, compare their scores withfriends scores and expect their child to

perform brilliantly in board exams.

As a consequence of this, the child becomesafraid of the examinations.

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The social stigma attached with the failuresand peer pressure also get some credit forthis lamentable scene.

When a student gets failed in anexamination or has poor marks, he is lookeddown by many of his friends and otherpeople.

Parents advice their children to stay away from these students. A child is not able toface humiliation and loss of his self-esteem.

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But the situation is not only related toschool and board exams, but also tocompetitive exams.

Parents force their children to get throughthe toughest exams and do not realize thecapabilities of them.

They dont give their children the freedom tochoose the career they want to. Why do they only expect them to become an engineer, adoctor and not an artist, a photographer or aphilosophy scholar?

A student is expected to perform excellently in these toughest exams which stresses him.

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A student if failed , is not able to bear thebrunt of his failure and of thedisappointment it brings to his parents.

But the question is: Is the student wrong?

Isnt it the responsibility of parents tounderstand their child, his heart, his wishes,his dreams?

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L ittle StarsA recent horrifying case of suicide happenedin Mumbai where an 11-year old girl hangedherself in her home when her parents wereon their work.

NEHA SAWANT, wanted to be a dancer.Good at dance, she had participated invarious TV reality shows. She had even

joined a dance academy and she excelled inwestern and folk dances.

It was her parents that pulled her out of theacademy in order to let her concentrate onstudies.

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L ittle StarsBut she insisted to go to the academy andthey refused.

Had they not been so harsh with her, shewould have been with them today.

But do we ever think how selfish we becomein order to get our desires fulfilled by ourchildren?

Why do we want them to do what we want?

Why not let them follow their own hearts?Why not teach them that perfection countsand not the money you earn in your job?

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The Education SystemThe parental pressure and expectations, peerpressure and social stigma are not the only factor responsible for students deaths.

Educators believe that the Indian EducationSystem, to some degree, is based on rotelearning and memorization with a strongemphasis on scoring high marks.

Students are expected to memorize lengthy answers and are required to rememberuseless information.

The system is more based on the factualinformation given in the books rather thanexperimentation and creation.

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The Education SystemCurrent style of teaching kills enthusiasmand supports a grade-centric system.

The exams are stressed over memory workrather than critical reasoning. Exams do notemphasize over thinking capability of astudent.

A student is expected to mug up all theanswers and then write them on theexamination paper without even thinking.

But what after the examination gets over?A student forgets everything that he muggedup. Isnt it a flaw of Education system? Is itwhat is called KNOWLEDGE. 17


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Teacher Teachers are considered to be theknowledge-givers to their students.

But do all teachers rightly do their job? The answer is a straight NO.

Many teachers like those students whowrites the language of a book in theexamination. They are given higher markseven though another student has written thesame explanation in a different set of words.

What is it a teacher testing here? The power and skill to comprehend the textor how brilliantly a student is able to

memorize the text.18


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Teacher A student who never had the power tomemorize lacks here and when the resultsare out, a sudden depression sets in.

A teacher is also expected to bond well with

its students and not insult or punish themharshly over an issue.

There have been cases in the past wherestudents have committed suicides over such

issues. Either they were excessively insultedby teachers or suspended from the school orpunished very harshly.

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StudentA ninth standard student KANNAN, endedhis life after he was caught copying in schooland was instructed by the teacher to bringhis parents to school the next day.

Students should be mentally and morally strong enough to accept their mistakes.Some of the students blame teachers solely for the act of ending their lives.

A bengaluru student who committed this actof self-destruction wrote that he would comeback as a ghost and harass his teacher.

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Dont R A G meBesides Exams and other factors, Raggingand failed love affairs and family problemsalso prompt students to end their lives.

History has in its account endless cases

where a fresher committed suicide after hewas harassed physically and mentally andabused and beaten by his seniors in college.

Why doesnt it stop then? What pleasure

does one derive out of RAGGING?Some say its a way of interaction and dont

realize that this interaction is taking away lives, is taking away happiness.

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Dont leave meF ailed love affairs also seems to be takingaway lives of students.

A Bengaluru student Lokesh, 22 Year old,committed suicide in 2007 at his residence

by taking an overdose of an anaesthetic.

Sad over disapproval of his marriageproposal with his girl friend, he ended hislife.

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The familyA suicide is a tremendous loss to adeveloping society.

But what is it like for the family of thevictim?

They are shattered. Their lives stop moving. They are caught in a state of mental andemotional trauma. There is a vacant place left in the family and a hole in the hearts of the family

members.

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L ife is Beautiful- prevent suicides

No one wants to die. We all have been created by God and we all want to live our life happily.

Then, how can we prevent depression and stresscoming into our lives? Or put in another words,how can we prevent student suicides ?

The family and friends come first. It is the family and friends who can help improve the situation.

Parents should not force their children and

should not compare them with anyone. They should let the child choose what he wants to do.

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Prevent SuicidesParents should take out time for theirchildren to communicate with them.F amily and friends should look out for signssuch as:

Aggressiveness Lack of concentration Nervousness Sudden secretiveness Rebellious behavior Open suicide talk

All these signs prompts towards one thing:the student is stressed.

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Prevent SuicidesTeachers should ask the students abouttheir problems which they are facing.

They are also supposed to counsel studentson various matters and subjects.

Schools should have counseling centers tomake the students feel at ease and to de-stress them.

Parents should also get themselvescounseled because in this changingeducation scenario, they also needs tobroaden their view and change theirthinking.

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Prevent SuicidesGovernment has recently taken many initiatives to counter the problem of studentsuicides in India.

The Honble Minister of HRD has takenrevolutionary steps in the educationframework.

Scrapping the CBSE class 10 board examswhich were considered as a stress factor forstudents is one of the major step taken inthis direction.

Grading the classes and not giving markshas also been introduced by CBSE.

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Prevent SuicidesEducation Boards have also set 20 mark forinternal assessment of the students. They would be assessed on their project work andthe year-long activities taken during thecourse.

Reforms have also been initiated to bring inthe common Education Board across all theschools in the country.

With the increase in the number of centersof Excellence such as IITS and IIMS, thecompetition is going to be less fiercer.

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Prevent SuicidesWith the proposed creation of more centraluniversities and the plans of bringing in theforeign universities in India, students willhave a chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

With the Supreme Court ruling criminalizingRagging in the college premises, students arenow more confident and are not ready to bethe victims of physical and mentalharassment and abuse.

Students, on their part, should also try to bemore vocal about their problems and shoulddiscuss with ones they confide in.

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Prevent SuicidesA suicide is always preventable and its only a little encouragement and love that canfight suicide.

Let us all try to prevent suicides.

Happy Life

Thank you!

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Students and Suicides

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