Students’ mental health has been an increasing cause for concern in India. According to data shared by the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, the number of student suicides increased from 10,335 in 2019 to 13,089 in 2021. This translates to one student death by suicide every 40 minutes. It has been estimated that out of all persons who died by suicide during 2022, 7.6% were students. More than half of suicides among people under 18 years were attributed to family problems (25%), love affairs (15%) and academic and career-related problems (12%) (National Crime Records Bureau Report on Suicides in India, 2023).
Academic distress has been escalating among high school students in the country, especially in young aspirants preparing for competitive examinations. Admission to professional undergraduate courses in India is based on the rank obtained in national level common entrance tests held annually and securing eligibility percentage (or percentile) marks in senior secondary school board examinations. There has been a rise in student suicidal behaviour attributed to academic pressure, created by an interplay of the system of examination, the deep-rooted belief of basing one’s worth on the three-hour performance and the uncertainty of securing a promising result. Incidents which have especially come to light include those among students enrolled in coaching centres for entrance exam preparation, with three cases reported in the first month of 2024 from a single centre alone.
Misconceptions and stigma around suicide have been prevalent for decades. Lack of awareness regarding mental illness has been a barrier to conversations around the topic, leading to increased hesitation among people with mental health conditions to seek help for the fear of being labelled and discriminated against. This has been a major concern especially in the case of young people in their formative phases in life who, in addition to experiencing changes in physical, social and emotional needs, also face the brunt of expectations set by families, teachers and schools.
Child and adolescent mental disorders have often been unacknowledged, misunderstood, mislabeled and unreported. More than 13% of adolescents worldwide aged 10-19 years live with a diagnosed mental disorder, which is the tip of an iceberg of epidemic proportions. While 83% of young people globally believed that sharing experiences with others and seeking support is the better way to address mental health issues, India alarmingly was the only exception with 41% young people subscribing to this viewpoint (UNICEF Report on State of the World’s Children, 2021). This highlights the necessity to understand the reasons why families and societies are evidently unresponsive to young people’s mental health needs in the country.
The first step towards addressing the issue is to recognize the rising rate of suicides among young people as a priority problem. Exploring the reasons for attempting suicide should go beyond counting numbers and focus on identifying contextual factors and dynamics contributing to these untimely deaths. While early identification and management of depression, anxiety and stress is important, the mainstay for mental health promotion is to create healthy environments for students and young people in the country.
- Healthy family and community: Addressing stigma related to mental health problems begins at home. Encouraging open communication and dialogue with children, creating a safe and non-judgemental environment, rationalizing goals and expectations, focusing on extracurricular development of the child and awareness regarding warning signs of suicide can play a vital role in preventing suicide among children and adolescents. Nurturing and positive parenting remains one of the strongest protective factor for mental health of adolescents and parents can play a pivotal role in mitigating academic distress.
- Integrating mental health in schools: Schools can be effective platforms for creating a safe, inclusive and healthy environment for children. On the other hand, it is where the child is most vulnerable to negative influences like peer pressure, bullying, discrimination and academic burnout. There needs to be a shift from cognitive to holistic education in schools. Awareness regarding mental health should be included in the curriculum to encourage conversation around the topic, along with appointment of psychological counselors for students. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has developed a specific module on emotional wellbeing and mental health of students as part of the School Health Programme under Ayushman Bharat in 2022.
- Adolescent health programmes: The Rashtriya Kishor Suraksha Karyakram programme and its component on Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics aim to provide information and counseling to adolescents 10-19 years of age in an equitable, accessible and appropriate manner. However, various technical and implementation issues remain, which limit the benefits of the programme from reaching the targeted beneficiaries.
- Legislative approaches: A welcome move for mental health protection of school students is the Ministry of Education’s recent directive on regulation of coaching centres which has come into effect from January 2024. These guidelines prohibit the admission of children under 16 years of age and those who have not yet completed the secondary school examination (tenth standard) into coaching centres. Hiring qualified tutors, ensuring a psychological counselling system in place, adhering to infrastructure safety standards, prohibition of misleading advertisements guaranteeing good ranks and having a reasonable fee structure are some of the other terms in the directive, violation of which can lead to penalties and revocation of registration.
In a populous country like ours, the pressure to crack IIT-JEE or NEET exams can be overbearing for young minds, especially when academic merit has been accepted as the only yardstick for success by society at large, and seats in ‘top colleges’ are limited. Each of us can play a part in changing this narrative. Since family is the strongest support mechanism for children and adolescents, family and positive parenting programmes hold immense promise and should be explored as interventions for building resilience among this vulnerable group.
Author: Dr. Rupsa Banerjee (Assistant Professor) IIHMR Delhi
Link: https://www.iihmrdelhi.edu.in/team-iihmr/assistant-professors/dr-rupsa-banerjee