Student suicide rate due to failure in exams is the highest in 2019

HYDERABAD: After he failed his mathematics exam, an 18-year-old second-year Intermediate student Ch Naveen Kumar hanged himself from a tamarind tree in an agriculture field in Yenkepally village in Vikarabad district on April 23. Ch Naveen Kumar belonged to the SC Madiga community. Ch Nagesh, Naveen's father, filed a complaint with the police, stating that his son failed in three subjects.

According to the Analysis of Data provided by the Telangana State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), most of the Intermediate students who committed suicide on account of failure in exams belonged to BC, SC, ST communities, poorer sections and families living in slums, tribal hamlets and villages. Forty-two Intermediate students had ended their lives in the past five years (from 2015 to 2019) in Telangana, and it is recorded that around 80 percent of the total belonged to Scheduled Caste, Schedule Tribe and Backward Caste communities. The death toll on grounds of failure in exams is the highest in 2019. As per official statistics, five Intermediate students had ended their lives in 2015. The number increased to fifteen students in 2019.

"Students in Telangana are stuck in the rat race of results at Intermediate level due to competition among corporate colleges. There is more pressure on Inter students than degree and PG, particularly in MPC and BiPC groups due to additional baggage of them having to appear for Eamcet and IIT entrance test. In socially and economically underprivileged families, students are not sensitised to accept or handle failures. The biggest challenge of parents is economic survival and when their sons or daughters fail, it brings a shock value", said Dr Vinita Pandey, assistant professor of sociology in Nizam College of Osmania University.

Out of the 42 students who committed suicides in the last five years, SCRB records show that 24 were girls and 18 were boys. "Despite outperforming boys in Inter exams, girls are more vulnerable emotionally. Though there is no exhaustive research on it, parents tend to get the girls married when they fail. Due to fear of early marriage, most girls go into depression. Girl students from minority communities often tell us that they will be married off if they fail in exams," said Vinita Pandey.

Prof N Purendra Prasad, head of the department of sociology at Hyderabad Central University said, "Structural conditions existing in the society are primarily responsible for suicides. Aspirational mobility among the lower classes to be part of larger kind of employment and beset by problems of access to quality education could be the reasons."