Jan
Ever heard of these names: Prajakta K. Kshatriya, Vrushali Kale, Vineet More ? Well, you are not alone in not knowing these names. My guess is 90% of readers who read this article haven’t heard of these names either. These are names of students in the age range 13-22, who ended their lives in Maharashtra, due to what authorities speculate ‘intense academic pressures’.
While a lot has been written in the media about this issue, ( TOI , NDTV, Rediff ) – has the message reached the common man? Apparently, BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) has roped in Aamir Khan as brand ambassador for their ‘Life is Beautiful’ campaign -
The workshop called ‘Life is Beautiful’, is meant for teachers at all BMC schools where 4.5 lakh children are studying at the moment. Dr Sanjay Oak, dean, KEM hospital said, “Students like Aamir’s personality. He makes films with a strong social messages.” On the anvil is an extensive multimedia campaign featuring the star, “appealing the young to appreciate the beauty of life”
The plan is indeed admirable but I believe, the challenge doesn’t lie in reaching out to students alone. The real deal is in reaching out to parents. A lot of parents in the state believe that ensuring that a child regularly goes to school is the end of their responsibilities towards the child. The truth sadly is far from it. 2 weeks back, I was chatting up with Manu Jindal – a strat.in reader . He is among the 80 odd candidates selected from all over India by ‘Teach for India’ for their 2 year fellowship program. Manu is of the opinion that educating parents about the intense competition in the acedemic world and the need of providing adequate monetary and mental support to the child is extremely important.
Also, I am sure this problem isn’t limited to Maharashtra. Depression in general, must be a nationwide phenomenon ( I don’t have stats to prove this- its a pure estimation). At the grassroots level , there is a need for all stakeholders – students, faculty, administration, course makers and parents to broaden their horizons. In today’s date, 300,000+ students sit for an exam called the IITJEE. Of them, less than 2% are finally going to secure admissions. The ratio is similar for securing admissions into any top college in the country. Clearly, its important that parents set objective, constructive goals for their children. As long as the community doesn’t get this message across to parents, suicides sadly will keep continuing. While its one thing imbibing discipline into children, discipline shouldn’t instill fear of failure. That sadly, is exactly what is happening.
To conclude, let me state that reaching out to parents as the real problem is singularly my take on the issue. There are other (Perhaps bigger) issues like acedemic pressures, academic system etc. But the problem can be tackled at home first, and for that reaching out to parents is a critical element.
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6 Responses to “Student suicides – What is the real problem?”
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a very nice article.
I believe that we not only need to update parents with present education scenario and challenges but also tell them about new vistas of job opportunities. Manyatimes parents keep limited options (like doctor or engineer) in front of students. This means that they feel areas like law, fashion design, sports, teaching are insecure for their child. We need to eliminate such notions of them.
Thanks Ankur. An excellent point raised by you too! The opportunities in the world have expanded, but parents’ vision perhaps hasn’t kept pace. Its time to update them… Probably in this regard, the role of media is important.
Nice thoughts Siddhesh.
No doubt, parents need some courses as well! But I believe that today, we need more number of better colleges in India. Not just in engineering but also medical, law and arts. Approximately 90 lakh students that pass out every year(and the number is growing) seek admission to various colleges. Even if we take 5% students as good students, this figure still amounts to 4.5 lakh. Now, when we have just one AIIMS for the entir country, 20-25 NIT’s-IIT’s, and a low number of good arts, law schools ( I am not aware of the exact number), why do we expect parents not to get worried. Also. true that not every parent should force his child to be a doctor/engineer, but are there really good colleges in other fields and that too in decent number? I believe that parents worries are justified to some extent.
I hope each of us grows up to be good parents. if our generation can understand the madness in the rat-race for degrees and marks in our country, half the problem is solved going into the future!
Nice article.
I would also like to add – I don’t blame the parents for this either. They are under equal amount of pressure to secure a good future for their kids. Who’d want his / her kid not to be at the top? The aim of every human being is to get prosperous, in the fastest and most convenient way.
Just think of it – the whole world is like a zero sum game, everything just adds up to zero, all the people well off are well off because they have been superior (mainly by luck) in their “performances” at some stage – and all the people suffering are those who have not reached where they should because of being edged out by “performers”.
Frankly, say there were no “competition” to become well off, then everyone would live an equally happy life right? Why should a rich person get more resources than someone else? Purely because of shortage of resources, and the demand always being higher than supply – the prices always suit the people who are richer. And the assumed easiest way to be richer, as of today, seems to be to be educated well.
I would say that is weird, because only a small percentage of those who attempt to get rich by strong education end up being rich. Most people try hard, but fail in that attempt.
It is the very nature of human beings to try and push for greater excellence that drives them to compete, and make things harder for themselves. Just like the prisoner’s dilemma (check wikipedia for what that is, if you aren’t an MBA
), while we all know that we can all choose to “not work so hard” and still live happily IF we all work in unity, we still work harder by the day to beat competition, and so does competition, to make life more difficult for each other!
A simple case of how some things went wrong in India – IT companies found such a good business model of providing services to foreign companies by employing cheap labour in India, they stopped trying to make people more innovative. With a lesser of an innovation mindset, more people started taking the supposed easier option of joining IT Companies, rather than trying to build more industries in India. And it appears so easy (or rather non risky) to get a job in reputed firms that you don’t see the point of risking into your own venture!
The bottom line according to me, is that we need to set up more research centres, we need to incentivize more people to go for research, to start their own businesses, and we need to change our mindset from finding the easy way out and doing the “regular thing”, and atleast try to do something on our own – not everyone’s made for it, but many people who are indeed made for it are staying away from it! One way in which that can be done is by bringing in more Venture Capital – something the leading Indian companies should do regularly now.