– Ramesh Sarraf Dhamora
Along with the increase in the number of coaching institutes in Kota, Rajasthan, which is famous in the name of education city in the country and the world, the increase in suicide incidents is also a matter of concern. Instead of education, the business of death is being done here. Kota is known for producing better results in medical and engineering entrance exams. These days there are national headlines about the increasing cases of suicides by students. According to the Kota police, 19 students committed suicide in 2018, 7 in 2017, 18 in 2016, 31 in 2015 and 45 in 2014. On May 27, student Sakshi (17) committed suicide in Kota. The student was doing NEET coaching while staying with her uncle. His dead body was found hanging in the room. A suicide note has been found from the room. It is written in it that no one is responsible for my death.
Sakshi was originally from Tonk. Sakshi’s uncle Surendra Jat is an assistant engineer in Kota Thermal. He said that Sakshi hanged herself probably due to the stress of studies. Kunhadi police station officer Ganga Sahay Sharma said that no concrete reason has come to the fore for Sakshi’s suicide. On the other hand, earlier on May 24, 16-year-old Aryan of Khojpura village in Bihar’s Nalanda district, who was preparing for the national level medical entrance exam NEET in Kota, committed suicide. This was the fifth incident of suicide in 27 days of May. There have been 11 cases of suicide and attempted suicide in Kota in the last five months.
On January 24, 2023, MLA Panachand Meghwal asked a question in the Vidhan Sabha regarding the suicide cases of coaching students in Kota division. In response to this, the government had said that in the last four years 2019 to 2022, a total of 53 cases of suicide of school-college and coaching center students have been registered in Kota division. In its reply, the main reasons given by the government for the suicides are lack of self-confidence of the students due to their lagging behind in the tests conducted at the coaching center, parents having high ambitions from the students, physical, mental and academic stress among the students. There are also major reasons like being born, financial constraints, blackmailing and love-affairs.
In Kota, about 1.5 lakh students live in Talwandi, Jawahar Nagar, Vigyan Vihar, Dada Bari, Vasant Vihar and surrounding areas of Rajiv Gandhi Nagar area and 60 thousand students live in Landmark area. Similarly, thousands of students also live in Coral Park, Borkheda. About 2.5 lakh students are studying in Kota. Most of them come from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. There are seven renowned and many other coaching centers in Kota. There are about three and a half thousand hostels and PGs in the city. Big hoardings littered with the success of students at every square of Kota city tell that coaching is everything in Kota. It is true that the success rate in Kota is above thirty percent. In the country’s engineering and medical competitive examinations, five students from Kota are in the top ten. Along with that there is a large number of students in Kota who fail. Some of them cannot tolerate their failure.
Today Kota is the super market of coaching in the country. According to an estimate, the annual turnover of the coaching market of Kota is four thousand crores. Coaching centers give an estimated 200-300 crore rupees annually to the government as tax. There are around 200 coaching institutes in Kota. Even Delhi, Mumbai as well as many foreign coaching institutes are also opening their centers in Kota. About 2.5 lakh students are taking coaching from these institutes. The main reason for the success in Kota is the teachers here. Students studying in engineering and medical colleges like IIT and AIIMS are leaving jobs in big companies and hospitals and teaching in coaching institutes here. Due to high salary, more than 75 IIT students are teaching in Kota city alone. Police, administration, coaching institutes in Kota have made many efforts to reduce the stress of studies among the students, but the incidents are not stopping.
Students from all over the country come to Kota to prepare for the entrance examinations for admission to engineering and medical colleges and keep preparing by enrolling in various private coaching centers here. But it is a matter of concern that many students have committed suicide in the last few years due to the pressure of passing the examination. For which excessive mental stress is believed to be the reason. Even though the coaching institutes are telling not to put pressure on the children. But it is not possible that the children preparing in the competitive environment of Kota should not feel the pressure.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development has talked about bringing a mobile portal and app, so that the compulsion of coaching can be eliminated for the students preparing for admission in engineering. As the syllabus, age, opportunities and exam structure of engineering is such that it is a compulsion for the students to try to succeed in a short period of time. That’s why they directly take the help of coaching institutes. If the facility of mobile portal and app is available, then it will open up better options to the students than coaching for the preparation of admission in engineering.
The entire economy of Kota rests on coaching. In such a situation, there is panic among the people due to the turning of coaching city into suicide city. In view of this, the administration, coaching institutes and common citizens are trying to find out how to stop the suicides of the students. If the incidents of suicides by the students studying in Kota are not stopped soon, then once again the same situation will happen here which happened a few years ago due to the economic crisis prevailing due to the lockout in the factories here. For this, the administration has started making rules and regulations for the operation of coaching institutes. Now it has to be seen whether the process of suicide stops or not.
(The author is associated with Hindusthan Samachar.)
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