HYDERABAD: Be it pressure to score good marks, verbal abuse in public, physical assault, unpalatable food and caste discrimination, the students of corporate educational institutions like Sri Chaitanya and Narayana are braving it all. Their daily life in college hostel is full of such frightening incidents which they never complain fearing being targeted by their teachers.
Referring to death by suicide of N Sathwik on Wednesday, a student of Sri Chaitanya college in Narsingi here, a former student of the same institution between 2018-2020, told TNIE that he had been through a similar situation. “I was once beaten up for wearing shorts in classes in summer. The principal, Krishna Reddy, carries a bamboo stick with which he mercilessly beat students, especially during study hours,” said B Surendar, an MPC student like Sathwik.
He also added that teachers had no expertise in teaching subjects. “If we had doubts about a particular subject, the teachers and the principal used to target us. Once I was a witness to a teacher humiliating students from Dalit community saying that they need not work hard as they had reservation and could get admission easily in higher courses,” said Surendar who is studying B Tech in the Cochin University.
The situation in other corporate institutions is more or less the same. “We were not beaten up in the college. But there were too many students in one class. We never understood what teachers would teach. The students sitting on the last bench could not even hear the lectures,” complained another former student of Narayana College in Lingampally.
The students also said that these institutions segregate students in 10 or more groups, according to the marks obtained by them. Only those students who secured good marks in weekly tests were allowed to prepare for JEE. Others were asked to focus on Intermediate Public Examination.
It is said that though Sathwik was a bright student he was shifted to a lower grade batch of students after the pre final IPE as he complained to the principal about a mistake in totalling his marks. Since then, the principal started harassing him publicly.
“When I was studying in the college, one of my classmates, Sanjeev Kumar from Nizamabad also hanged himself to death in the hostel room. We were sent to our homes for four days after the incident. They told us not to speak about the incident,” another former student from the same 2018 batch revealed. We never dared complain about this to our parents thinking that they would consider it an excuse to run from studies.
3,600 take lives between 2014 and 2022
More than 3,600 students died by suicide in the State from 2014-2021, the data collected from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says. As many as 567 students, the highest number in all these years, ended their lives in 2021 alone.
Speaking to TNIE, Dr Daljeet Kaur, Consultant Psychiatrist at Continental Hospital here said that students from such academic institutions often came for consultation. “When we have high performing students working really hard towards their goals, they not only set high expectations for themselves but are also under constant peer pressure and pressure from their teachers and parents. Around this time, they would thrive only if they have a supportive environment,” she explained.
“If a student goes through humiliation or discrimination due to their performance, then there is a lot of training required for teachers to be empathetic, communicate effectively so the students and their families feel a sense of support,” Dr Kaur said.
She advised that some amount of stress can be productive for students but if the stress is affecting them on a daily basis, they should share it with their family and friends. “Suicides are not always due to depression, they can be due to impulsive acts where the student didn’t understand how to cope at that particular time. Academic institutions need to have stress management sessions and a counsellor or at least having a psychological minded coordinator at college or hostel that the student can approach,” Dr Kaur said.