NCPCR expresses concern over student suicides

Taking a serious note of increasing student suicides in Kota, a hub of engineering and medical entrance exam coachings, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) today said it has come across glaring violations not just in the Rajasthan town but in Chandigarh as well where these institutes have mushroomed.
"In Kota, in the past three years 42 suicides of children have been recorded. In this year alone, there have been 4-5 cases. Commission is of the view that we cannot allow children to die like that. Steps need to be taken to check this disturbing trend," said Priyank Kanoongo, Member Education, NCPCR, while addressing a press conference here.

He said the commission had visited Kota last month and it had sought a response from district administration and the institutes about the suicides.
Kanoongo, however, said so far they have not received any satisfactory response.
On the reasons behind the students taking such extreme steps, he said the coaching institutes had a system of "batch shuffling".
"Like they have a star batch and students are under pressure to join that batch. It leads to stress among rest of the students who are unable to make it to that batch. One who has not even appeared in the (IIT and other entrance) examination, he/she is told that they cannot get selected since they fail to make it to the star batch," he said.

On the mushrooming of coaching institutes, he said, "We will give our recommendations as new educational policy is being framed."

Officials of the commission will visit other coaching hubs in India and give their recommendations to the government so that national-level guidelines are formulated.
In reply to a query about some coaching institutes in Chandigarh allegedly forcing students to wear a particular uniform and carry bags with their logos, Kanoongo said they were taking advantage of the absence of any regulatory authority.
"They go scot-free. What we are saying is somebody has to regulate them," he said.
He said through chief secretaries of concerned states, they have sought report from district magistrates of places around the country which have emerged as coaching hubs.

"We have decided to visit places where such coaching hubs exist, be these in Chandigarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, part of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra or elsewhere. We have identified various hubs, like Latur, Indore, Vijaywada, Tiruchirappalli etc," he said.
"We will prepare a detailed report...A countrywide guideline has to be framed on how coaching institutes can be regulated," he added.
Kanoongo said the commission found glaring violations
were found in the coaching institutes in Chandigarh.
"In one such institute, we found there were 3000 students who were enrolled but the management had only record of 1000. Also, they had only one counsellor for the whole coaching centre," he said.

"Some students we came across were the ones who say they are non-attending students. We will highlight the irregularities and put these before the government," he said.
On a question on "non-attending" or dummy students, he said, "There is a nexus of coaching institutes and schools and we want to break it. We will also ask education department to take action. How can a student be present both in his school and in the coaching institute at the same time. We will also recommend to HRD Ministry to take strict action against those schools found enrolling such dummy students."
He said in the coaching institutes in Chandigarh, it was found that the police verification of their employees, who are from different states, had not been carried out.

"We have written to state governments that before start of the next session, in all schools across the country, teaching and non-teaching faculty including guards, driver, cleaner, anyone who comes in contact with the child, their police verification should be done," he said.
"We have also asked the Centre that under the new education policy, in which school education has 13 themes, one more theme of safety and security in school be added," he said, adding, "We will give our recommendations in this regard but first we will involve all stakeholders like CBSE, ICSE and KVs and discuss all this in detail."

In reply to a question, Kanoongo said the commission had received inputs that certain organisations, which conduct various general knowledge and Olympiad tests in schools, were selling the database of children.
"On the basis of the data which has been sold to various entities, many children were getting emails and phone calls from various institutes asking them to enroll in their coaching centres.
"Under Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, it is completely illegal. If we come to know that any organisation has sold data of children, then definitely they will go to jail," he said.