Indian Express: Kota: Thursday,
October 27, 2016.
Education hub
Kota, which has over the last few years reported several incidents of students
committing suicide, still awaits a government counselling facility for medical
and engineering aspirants coming from different parts of the country.
According to
experts, stress remains the dominant cause of suicide among the youths who
flock to the Rajasthan city, one of the most sought after destinations for
preparations for entrance into prestigious colleges like the IITs.
This year, 14
students, including girls, have committed suicide in Kota, whereas the number
of students’ suicide last year stood at 21, even as the government so far has
no proposal for establishing a counselling centre of its own for the students,
officials have said.
The district
administration has asked all the coaching institutes to appoint psychologists
for counselling but the city has no full-fledged centre to deal with the stress
in the young minds.
“There is no
proposal from the government to set up its own counselling centre but the
district administration is mandated with monitoring the situation. All the
coaching institutes have been asked to appoint professional clinical
psychologists for counselling of students and their parents before admission,”
District Collector Ravikumar Surpur said.
The coaching
centres in the town, however, contribute hundreds of crores of rupees to the
government kitty in the form of service tax. As per an information obtained by
Chandrashekar Gaur of Madhya Pradesh under Right to Information (RTI) Act, Rs
167.79 crore have been collected as service tax from the coaching institutes in
the last fiscal, while Rs 87.59 crore have been collected till June this year.
The Collector
said two local organisations are running helplines and conducting counselling
for students for stress management. Dr M L Agrawal, who runs a helpline called
‘Hope’, said he has counselled 540 students and many of them were accompanied
by their parents.
“The level of
stress was so high that 26 students were about to commit suicide and they were
properly counselled and the thought of suicide was washed from their mind,” he
claimed.
“In most of
the cases, study-related issues are the main cause of stress. Besides,
relationship and home sickness are also some of the important reasons,” he
added. Gaur, who obtained the information of service tax collected from the
coaching institutes, suggested that the government should set up a professional
centre to counsel the students.
The National
Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) had earlier in June this year
summoned Kota District Collector regarding a spate of suicide cases involving
IIT-aspirants studying in various coaching centres in the town.
The
commission, probing 44 suicide cases in the coaching hub during past three
years, was also critical of the prevailing conditions in many coaching
institutes.
“There were
250 students packed in one classroom, there is no grievance redressal system
for students and even though there is a helpline number available the same has
not been displayed at these centres. We also noticed that at one of the centres
there were only four counsellors for 77,000 students,” an NCPCR official had
noted.
“The
government is collecting service tax from coaching institutes, so it should
also provide facilities for counselling on its own,” said Kamesh Sharma, a
local social worker.
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