My first article

The last day of consecutive holidays is either the Best or the worst day of the holidays. I'm feeling a little bored and a lot lazy. I try to write something, but don't know what. A few days back, I helped my friend in writing an essay. We sent it for a column in The Hindu. The topic was Student Suicides. Well, Suicides at IIT would have made a better topic for me. I could have written pages on what is wrong with the system, the people..blah blah... the usual stuff. But this one was about general student suicides. I suggested a few things- I'm publishing my views here. I don't want my effort to go in vain, just in case The Hindu thinks it unfit for publishing in their newspaper :D




The spate of suicides among the student community these days is alarming. The most common reasons stated are the pressure to perform and the fear of failure.

Beneath these two reasons is a common reason of lack of opportunites and the mindset of parents, teachers and other people who influence children.


Lack of opportunities- The Indian education system since long has not been braod-minded in according importance to non-professional courses. This creates a misconception among parents and they want their children to be either a doctor or an engineer or an IAS- nothing else. This increases the pressure to perform for the students at a very tender age. Poor performance in school at this stage causes irreperable damage to the child's confidence. He feels he is failng his parents and builds a low feeling about himself. If at this stage, he is told of the other big things he can do- in sports, arts, law, vocational skills and is made to believe that these things are as good as any other field, the damage can be reduced.

For this, we need changes both in the elementary level and higher education system.


In the Higher education level- make specialized istitutes in fields as diverse as law to agriculture and music. Though we already have many universities, the quality is dismal and entry into such colleges is not considered 'prestigious'. There is a need to change this conception by investing heavily in providing quality higher education standards even in non- conventional fields(non-professional) areas entry into which is considered good. The critical aspect here is the number of such universities. Less number will again result in fierce competition and hence defeat the purpose.


In the elementary level, changes have to be made in the number of parameters on which students are judged/graded. At present, a student is evaluated in 6 or 7 subjects in a final examination. This should be broadened to include sports, art & craft etc.
Establishing more number of specialized schools which concentrate on say sports or arts like drawing, music etc will be a good proposition. This helps children to know what they are good at early and develop skills for a brighter career in their focus area.


All the above suggestions are long term and are made to reduce both the importance of marks and the fierce competition for entry into a few select courses. Unlike these, elimination of board exams or decreasing the standards of exams may give results in the short- run but the country might suffer from the poor standards of education. We only need provide opportunities in diverse fields for students.