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In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

wired.co.uk

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Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#11

Post by kamaal »

nishnik wrote: post #4

I appreciate this for the article points out an alarming issue. But there has been slight mis-representation. It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only. No, there are the NITs, BITSes, IIITs, IISc and others which have equal facilities as IITs and are even doing better than some IITs.

>>It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only.

Well, the problem is people treat degrees from these institutions as lifelong aristocratic privilege. Once you start going in that direction, its now in your interest to keep the myths alive about your alma mater.

How else are you going to earn higher than everybody else? You have to convince the society nobody can ever be good as you, by very social design, and you have to keep things that way.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#12

Post by shubhamjain »

a_d wrote: post #2

I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams…

I am from Kota too and your argument is just nit-picking. Of course, when you're blaming high-pressure exams, you're also blaming every factor related to it. Your analysis of suicide rates fails to consider that these are very young students barely in the age group of 15-19 and the cause is singular (high-pressure parenting).

But suicide rate is just one symptom that this industry engenders. The immense pressure these kids are subject to is depressing as fuck. They (and their parents) all have been fed the dream that working 15 hours/day is a sure-shot way to make it in. And once you make in IIT, you don't have to fret about anything else.

Some kids have been working towards this dream, right from 6-7th grade. Yes! six years before they are to take the actual exam.

I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it.

Looking back, it just escapes me how so many people can come to believe that a single exam is going to narrate your whole fate in life.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#13

Post by preordained »

kamaal wrote: post #10

These things have always existed in India. Largely happens because most people come from a strata of society where failure is not an option. Should you fail, you go back to the same crappy conditions all life. Having said that, Indians solicit social approval as a report card that evaluates their life. And due to this people face irrational pressures from total strangers who have no stake in their lives. I remember s…

>People need to understand they can do what they want, how they want, and on their terms

Not to be nit picker...but while encouraging to hear, that sentence seems a wee bit exaggerated. I think the main takeaway from your post--which I 100% agree with--is that social approval being the motivator in your life is a recipe for disappointment.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#14

Post by kobiguru »

kamaal wrote: post #11
nishnik wrote: post #4

I appreciate this for the article points out an alarming issue. But there has been slight mis-representation. It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only. No, there are the NITs, BITSes, IIITs, IISc and others which have equal facilities as IITs and are even doing better than some IITs.

>>It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only. Well, the problem is people treat degrees from these institutions as lifelong aristocratic privilege. Once you start going in that direction, its now in your interest to keep the myths alive about your alma mater. How else are you going to earn higher than everybody else? You have to convince the society nobody can ever b…

I agree. Many Indian jobs advertisement specially mention student from IIT only. there is job site that targets only IITians.

So the pedigree obviously is valuable.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#15

Post by manojlds »

more-coffee wrote: post #5

"Large group of young students in India, pursuing a future under impossible circumstances, collapsing under the immense pressure and leading some of them to commit suicide." Well, that's terrible. Surely we should discuss why they even get to this point, and how this could be prevented? "Most suicides happen by hanging from ceiling fans, so let's make anti-suicide ceiling fans." Nailed it.

So to admit my daughter to pre kindergarten, the school expects her to know the alphabet already. Talk about pressure.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#16

Post by chii »

shubhamjain wrote: post #12
a_d wrote: post #2

I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams…

I am from Kota too and your argument is just nit-picking. Of course, when you're blaming high-pressure exams, you're also blaming every factor related to it. Your analysis of suicide rates fails to consider that these are very young students barely in the age group of 15-19 and the cause is singular (high-pressure parenting). But suicide rate is just one symptom that this industry engenders. The immense pressure thes…

> I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it.

so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people?

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#17

Post by modi15 »

kamaal wrote: post #10

These things have always existed in India. Largely happens because most people come from a strata of society where failure is not an option. Should you fail, you go back to the same crappy conditions all life. Having said that, Indians solicit social approval as a report card that evaluates their life. And due to this people face irrational pressures from total strangers who have no stake in their lives. I remember s…

> Having said that, Indians solicit social approval as a report card that evaluates their life.

Ask any psychologist and they will confirm that 'soliciting social approval as a report card to evaluate their life' is basically a human condition affection close to 100% of the species.

The only thing 'Indian' about it is that maybe only Indians think that its an 'Indian' thing.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#18

Post by enitihas »

manojlds wrote: post #15
more-coffee wrote: post #5

"Large group of young students in India, pursuing a future under impossible circumstances, collapsing under the immense pressure and leading some of them to commit suicide." Well, that's terrible. Surely we should discuss why they even get to this point, and how this could be prevented? "Most suicides happen by hanging from ceiling fans, so let's make anti-suicide ceiling fans." Nailed it.

So to admit my daughter to pre kindergarten, the school expects her to know the alphabet already. Talk about pressure.

Well, some schools even expect the parents to be well educated.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#19

Post by intended »

a_d wrote: post #2

I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams…

India and the other countries which have this exam system have suicides.

India just doesn’t have the reporting or data to showcase it. This will improve over time and the scope of it will be clear.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#20

Post by intended »

lozenge wrote: post #7
a_d wrote: post #2

I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams…

India's population has boomed in 50 years but has the number of available places at prestigious institutions boomed with it?

India’s pop has been booming for more than 50 years, and we only got independence recently enough that institution building is measured in less than 100 years (to be fair many old colleges exist with older roots, but for the sake of comparison with the entire population, they are a drop in the bucket.)

Unfortunately time is not on our side, as it takes a long time to make institutions and good institutional habits.

To compound the problem- for most of 50 years there was huge bran drain. All those people who would become professors, or experts used their English advantage to move abroad and use their talents better.

Not to mention the years lost due to license raj.

I’d say things are slowly working out and improving. Whether it’s in time to help the demographics, I don’t know.

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