Kota suicides: Experts call April-May 'high-risk' months, urge administration to make counselling mandatory

In the wake of rising suicides in Rajasthans Kota experts have termed April and May highrisk months for NEET and JEE aspirants and called on the district administration to make students counselling mandatory in all PGs and hostelsRecently two students committed suicide in Kota within a gap of 48 hours a few days before their NEET examination which is scheduled for May 5One amongst them Bharat in his suicide note wrote I am sorry papa please forgive me I couldnt do it this time too Bharat a resident of Dholpur was preparing for the NEET entrance test and had committed suicide by hanging himselfBhupesh Dikshit a public health expert at Shikshit Rozgaar Kendra Prabhandhak Samiti says As major entrance exams are conducted in summer April and May are like highrisk months The administration should pay more attention to all those places where coaching centres are operated The district and police administration should stay alert Monitoring of all PGs and hostels should be done Students counselling should be made mandatory Besides this patrolling during night hours should be intensified and a rapid action team should be formed to monitor the activities of studentsKotas coaching industry is worth up to Rs 5000 crore and has garnered fame for producing toppers in various entrance tests But sadly coaching centres in the city have failed to bring a solution to stop the series of suicides by studentsSo far in 2024 nine students have already committed suicide in the city Last year 29 students lost their lives due to suicidesPsychologist Eena Budhiraja blames rising consumerism for the increasing suicides in Kota She says Its a fact that every child is talented But everyone has a different talent Fish can swim in water but cannot walk on land The human brain develops in different ways But in todays consumerist world money is being given more importance In such a situation parents want children to take a career where they can earn decent money This is why they often think their child should either become a doctor or an engineer without considering the childs actual talentMeanwhile different surveys in Kota have indicated that four out of every ten students in the city are under depression There are about 3000 private hostels in Kota which have thousands of rooms and over two lakh students come to the city for medical and engineering coachingAmong these aspirants a few left this world leaving behind suicide notes for their parents saying sorry to them which bespeaks the kind of pressure they were fighting withJEE aspirant Niharika committed suicide and left a note which read Sorry mummy papa I cant crack JEE so am committing suicide I am a loser and have been unable to be a good daughter Sorry mummy papa but this is the only option left with me Her brother later revealed that she was under tremendous pressureAnother JEE aspirant from Bihars Bhagalpur consumed poison ending his life In his suicide note he wrote Papa I am unable to crack JEE also couldnt gain the courage to speak out this fact to you I quitThe list of such suicides is long and these incidents have left one and all to think why children are under so much pressure Why are they not realising the importance of life Why becoming a doctor or an engineer is so importantDeepa Khandelwal a mother says Our education system is largely responsible for leaving students under pressure There are very few career options in the humanities you can become a teacher but you will get a small salary Similarly it isnt easy to run household expenses with music dance or photography Civil services examination is also not for everyone Medicine and engineering are lucrative careers and to crack entrance exams coaching has become necessaryIn a letter to parents recently Kota District Collector Ravinder Goswami stated A childrsquos happiness means the world to their parents however this happiness should not be connected to scores he gets in examsHe noted that the problem arises when the happiness of children is associated with the marks they obtain in the examsDoes one become successful only by passing an exam No Goswami wrote He urged parents to give their wards a chance to improve themselves as his own parents did to him when he returned home from Kota where he had stayed for the preparation of PMT but failed onceThe District Collector appealed to the parents to speak to their wards regularly listen to them and make them believe that they are the most needed ones and most precious to themGoswami also wrote a letter separately to students in which he noted that failures give one the opportunity to surmount the mistakes committed in life and turn the failures into successThe District Collector also noted that the exam is only a phase in life and not the ultimate goal and it cannot determine the direction of ones lifeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness 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