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| Educational Status of Suicide Victims during 2000 Data Source: Government Open Data, NCRB |
The suicide of an 18-year-old student the day after results
were declared for India’s hyper-competitive National Eligibility Entrance Test
(NEET) has shone a spotlight on the mental toll this annual test takes on those
who sit for it.
The teenager’s death was the 11th suicide linked to
preparation for entrance examinations this year. In 2023, 26 aspirants at
India’s ‘cram schools’ died by suicide.
There is an unfolding crisis among students who join these
coaching centres to prepare for the NEET and IIT-JEE, crucial exams for
students to gain entry into the country’s top medical and engineering
institutions.
This year, nearly 24 lakh students competed for just 1.1 lakh
available seats in the NEET exam and more than 14 lakh students in both the sessions of JEE Mains,
underscoring the intense pressure and fierce competition faced by candidates.
Kota, in Rajasthan, where the deaths took place, is the ‘cram school capital‘ of the country. The dynamics of the
Kota coaching industry have even been made into a popular Netflix series, Kota
Factory.
Every year, approximately 200,000 students flock to Kota to
prepare for IIT-JEE, a national-level two-part Joint Entrance Examination for
engineering, and NEET, a pre-medical entrance examination.
The exam format is also tough, and different from mainstream
school exams. School examinations are subjective whereas JEE and NEET exams are
objective (multiple choice questions) and include negative markings.
The preparation and mindset needed to appear in competitive
exams, where the rate of failure is very high, are very different from that of
school examinations.
In most cases, students simultaneously prepare for
competitive exams while still enrolled at school. This adds to the pressure on
the students, who are already preparing for their Board examinations to
complete their higher secondary education.
Private coaching is a form of supplementary education that
is taken alongside mainstream education commonly known as shadow education.
This phenomenon is not only peculiar to India. The number of cases of student depression and even
suicides in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan related to schooling problems provides
a stark reminder of the impact of extreme pressure on young minds.
Some students take coaching classes willingly and others
under family and social pressure. Aspirants use private coaching to increase
their chances of success.
Elite institutions confer on the students an identifiable
social advantage, which translates into social prestige, better job
opportunities, and high pay packages in the future. However, entry to these
top-quality institutions is highly competitive.
The chances of success for most students are slim.
It is contingent on the ability of the students, as
reflected in the marks obtained in the school board examination. Based on this,
many parents decide to invest in coaching — approximately Rs 3-4 lakh in
tuition fees and living expenses — despite knowing the chances of success are
low.
The expectations of both students and their parents are
crucial to this process.
The private coaching industry has economic, social, and
educational implications.
First, the costly nature of coaching both in terms of money
and time spent: a minimum of two years, often while in high school and
sometimes after completion of higher secondary education.
The social implications include increasing mental pressure
on students due to the hyper-competitive nature of the exams and family
pressure to succeed.
The educational implications are that students skip school
to start preparing early for the exams or take dummy admission in schools while
being registered in the coaching institutes.
The extreme pressure on students to compete sometimes
results in students taking extreme steps such as taking their lives.
To address this, guidelines have been issued by the central
government and the state government. The Ministry of Education provided guidelines for the regulation of coaching centers in
January 2024. The Rajasthan government also issued guidelines for reducing
stress and improving the mental health of students enrolled in coaching
Institutes in September 2023.
India’s National Education Policy 2020 has identified that
“coaching culture” is causing harm, especially at the secondary level, and
suggested the elimination of the need for coaching for “cracking the
examination”.
Counselling for students and parents so they understand the
exam format of the exam would help. False expectations on part of the parents
often cause stress among the students.
Students could also be awarded grades rather than ranks
during the internal test in the coaching. Relative ranking in the internal
tests which are conducted fortnightly causes a lot of stress among the
students.
Finally, extensive ethnographic studies would provide a more
detailed analysis of the coaching ecosystem. It is crucial to understand that
the well-being and holistic development of our youth must take precedence over
any examination.
Article published on: 05 February 2025
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