E-Paper
Academic stress among causes of suicides at top institutes like IIT: Centre
Academic stress, and family, personal and mental health issues, are among some of the reasons identified behind the cases of suicides among students at the country’s premier higher education institutions, the union ministry of education informed the Parliament on Wednesday.
Academic stress, and family, personal and mental health issues, are among some of the reasons identified behind the cases of suicides among students at the country’s premier higher education institutions, the union ministry of education informed the Parliament on Wednesday.
Responding to a question raised by Congress’ L. Hanumanthaiah in the Upper House about rising cases of suicides among students in the premier educational institutes including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institute of Technology (NITs), and Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar provide data on the number of deaths by suicide in these institutions for the past five years.
According to the government data, six deaths by suicide have been reported this year at the IITs and NITs. There is no clear trend in the data -- there were 16 deaths by suicide in 2022, seven in 2021, five in 2020, 16 in 2019, and 11 in 2018.
The Government’s data comes days after an 18-year-old Dalit student died by suicide at IIT-Bombay and his family alleged that he faced caste-based discrimination at the institute. The institute has denied that this was the case. The minister did not mention discrimination among the reasons for the suicides at the premier institutions.
The minister said that various steps have been undertaken by the institutions, including peer-assisted learning, and teaching courses in regional languages.
“The Government of India initiative, named MANODARPAN, covers a wide range of activities to provide psychological support to students, teachers and families for mental and emotional well-being during the COVID outbreak and beyond. The ministry has also advised the institutions to make the system more robust that would include prevention, detection and remedial measures for addressing possible cause of suicides,” he added in his written response.
The minister said that the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has started work on translation of technical books in 12 scheduled regional languages.
