Student suicide rates in India have been on spike for a long time, so much so, that it is rated among the highest in the world. It is only the sixth month of 2017 and IIT Kharagpur has already had three student suicides, including one M. Tech student.
The issue is worrisome to the point where the institute has begun various practices to build a better environment. Every evening, lights are cut off for an hour so that everyone comes out of their clustered, secluded hostel room and start building a life in real sense and not just the virtual one.
With the virtual world being confused to the real one, students stay inside their rooms with their laptops or gadgets in hands for much of the time. This creates many socially awkward and builds social anxiety. And hence, to burst the awful balloon of solidarity and get some fresh air in the students’ system, the institute made the move.
“Once the lights are turned off, all the students are expected to come out of their room. Normally those students who spend maximum time in their room and do not interact with others, they are also forced to come out of their room and mingle with others,” Manish Bhattacharjee, Dean of students affairs at IIT Kharagpur, told Quartz.
Across the country, IITs have seen a rash of suicides and attempts and depression is frequently quoted as a leading cause. According to the National Crime Bureau Report, in 2015, 8,934 students committed suicide.
As the mental health crisis is making itself felt among students, the institutes have been jolted into taking some preventive measures. The approaches are various, multi-pronged and they aim to make student lives more wholesome, while providing ways to manage stress, the prime source of which seems to be work pressure and an intensely competitive climate for grades and placements.
With such mental and emotional health imbalance, the institutes have been compelled to take steps to prevent such happening in future. Institutes bank upon various approaches which have multiple dimensions and have a direct positive impact on the lives of students. These approaches are applied while providing ways to manage stress, the prime source of which seems to be work pressure and an intensely competitive climate for grades and placements.
It has included making parent-teacher meetings part of the curriculum and making more counselling facilities available to students, which have generally been inadequate so far. IIT Kharagpur, for instance, has a dedicated Facebook page where counsellors are available 24×7. In 2016, 3000 out of total 11000 students are known to have reached out for help over it.
The institute also set up the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness last year which organises workshops and talks about the science, theory and practice of happiness and well being. In IIT Guwahati, a performance arts facility called ‘Center for Creativity’ has been opened where students can dance, sing and play musical instruments. Tree-hugging sessions and communication with alumni who have dealt with depression have also been organised and facilitated.