Kota coaching institutes address student suicide, focus on mental wellbeing

Sports, lighter schedules, mentorship, and enlisting experts such as psychologists and cousellors are among some of the steps taken by institutes

Coaching institutes in Kota have begun taking active steps towards ensuring student mental health and well-being admid student suicides, according to a report by the Economic Times.

 

Kota is home to more than 150 coaching institutes that cater to around 200,000 students preparing for competitive exams like JEE and NEET. This year alone, 23 student suicides have been reported in India's renowned coaching hub.

 

In response to the rising number of cases, coaching institutes in the city are taking various steps to help mitigate the situation. Steps such as incorporating sports into schedules, monitoring psychological well-being, and creating access to psychology and psychiatry experts have been taken to combat depression and other mental health concerns of students.

 

 

Prominent coaching centres like Allen, Career Point, Motion Education, and Physics Wallah are looking to provide counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists for the early identification of depression. Motion Education has begun utilising an app to monitor well-being. Career Point is working to incorporate sports activities like basketball, volleyball, football, and squash for students residing on campus.

 

However, experts argue that the root cause of the issue extends beyond the coaching institutes. There is a lot of pressure on students to secure limited engineering and medical seats. This highly competitive environment can pressure students who aspire to be doctors and engineers.

 

Moreover, student demography has also shifted at coaching institutes. Kota attracts many highly motivated students with a strong inclination towards academics and higher education. However, many students do not aspire to be engineers or doctors, and some may be less academically inclined. These students are often registered to coaching institutes under pressure placed on them by ambitious parents, who only view engineering and medical professions as viable careers.

 

Vice-chancellor of BITS Pilani and former director of IIT Delhi, V Ramgopal Rao told ET, "This situation has arisen due to a cocktail of reasons like ambitions of students, pressure from parents, lack of a financial model for institutes to expand and overselling of dreams by coaching centres."

 

Anil Sahasrabudhe, the chairman of National Educational Technology Forum and former chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education is advocating for mentorship of students from an early age so that they can pursue their true passions from an early level.

 

The Rajasthan government has also prompted coaching centres to conduct psychometric tests and enlist experts such as psychologists and psychiatrists.