OPINION | When the Classroom Turns Fragile: Rising student suicides

student suicide

Nikhil is an ambitious and high-performing student with aspirations to study medicine. Approaching junior year, he believed it marked a decisive period that would shape his chances at top universities. With his intellect and demeanour, Nikhil was the poster boy of academic achievement but nobody knew about the downward spiral beneath the perfect exterior. Struggling to deal with the increasing levels of stress and anxiety, he succumbed to destructive coping mechanisms over time. Exposure to misguided peers got him hooked on to drugs, while his relationship with his parents began deteriorating, ending with a heartbreaking tragedy.

Nikhil's story is not uncommon. The National Crime Records Bureau says one student commits suicide every 42 minutes. India has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. Just in 2020, as many as 11,396 student suicides were registered in India from ages under 18. Like Nikhil, high school students across the country struggle with mental health issues, overwhelmed by the pressure of advanced-level courses, extracurricular activities, sports teams, and competitive exams. So widespread is student misery that in the past twenty years, suicide among students has increased at a startling rate of 4% per year — double the average for the nation as a whole. These statistics speak to a worrying trend that mental health issues are growing and have become common among our students.

As a simple comparative analysis, we study the suicide rate among students and compare them with farmer suicide which gets significant public and policy attention across the country. Whether in terms of shares or in terms of absolute numbers, farmer suicides have been falling sharply, while student suicides have been rising steadily. The mental health of students deserves greater attention from governments, civil society and public at large in India.

(Source: NCRB data)

(Source: NCRB data)

In terms of disaggregated data, we note that while the number of student suicides are rising overall, there are some relevant differences across genders. Suicides by male students have always outnumbered female students in the last 25 years, remaining significantly higher. While this might be due to reporting biases, the persistent gap across the years is a troubling fact. Moreover, in the recent years, particularly since 2016, the gap between male and female suicides have been growing – with a significant jump in male student suicides.

(Source: NCRB data)

As past research has shown, reporting of suicides by the media must be well regulated by the government. Too much detailing with visuals in the media is also associated with triggering copycat suicides. In her Brookings paper “A Reality Check on Suicides in India”, Shamika Ravi (2015) argues that dramatic coverage, especially when it “dramatizes the impact,” uses vivid details, or glorifies suicide, can make suicide seem like an acceptable reaction for vulnerable people. Responsible reporting must follow a code of ethics and guidelines to avoid sensationalism which can trigger other vulnerable students creating a suicide contagion.

To deal with the growing pressures of academic decision making, school have been deploying career counselling as a standard practice among senior and secondary level students. Mental health counselling, on the other hand, remains rare among students despite the growing concern. This is largely due to societal stigma and lack of awareness.

“We have been giving more importance to academic success than emotional well-being for too long now. Students like Nikhil are expected to execute like robots rather than being equipped with the emotional tools required for such execution,” explains a mental health expert that we spoke with. Research on university programming for athletes has highlighted the widespread provision of career planning resources but a lack of employed full-time mental health professionals, emphasizing a skewed ratio within available support systems. Unlike career counselling where advancements in technology can enable a lot of what's being done to be replaced with online assessments and AI-driven platforms etc, mental health support is not as straightforward. This only accentuates the necessity for an update of mental health services at schools so that they are available to students and work for everyone.

Another, often overlooked factor, is the growing emotional distance between high schoolers and their parents. Alongside intense academic demands, adolescents today face growing feelings of isolation and emotional neglect. Together, these forces have created a widespread crisis of loneliness among this age group. Social interactions have further deteriorated with the use of social media platforms, leading to constant exposure to idealized images and curated lifestyles. These fuel feelings of inadequacy and lower self-esteem. These angsts are compounded by the exploding hormones of the teenage years where students grapple with sexuality and changing appearances. Without adequate support to cope with these anxieties and mental health concerns, adolescents often resort to impulsive and risky thrill-seeking activities.

The reality is that most schools are not adequately equipped to handle these concerns regarding mental health. Students are more likely to be met with disciplinary action rather than support for emotional wellbeing. The response is largely tentative and based on experience. In several cities, episodes of student suspensions when caught vaping, have been reported. However, such measures fail to address the underlying factors that drive such risky student behaviour.

So, what can schools do? Just like the implementation of career counselling in schools throughout the country, it’s time for mental health counselling to be made universally available to all students across the country. Whilst career counselling guides students towards their professional goals, wellness counsellors must curate a safe environment for students to have healthy conversation about their troubles. The most crucial part of this endeavour is to foster and promote a healthy relationship among students, their peers, teachers and their parents.

In the recent years, the Indian government has introduced several initiatives to support the mental health of school students. Manodarpan, launched in 2020, by the Ministry of Education, offers counselling services, awareness programs and a national helpline to help students manage stress and emotional challenges. Tele-MANAS, under the Ministry of Health, provides 24x7 tele-mental health support through toll-free numbers, allowing students to access counselling from anywhere. Since its launch in 2022, nearly 25 lakhs calls have been made to this number. NCERT also contributes through guidelines, trained counsellors and interactive programmes like SAHYOG, which focus on emotional well-being and life skills. Together, these initiatives aim to create a supportive environment that promotes psychological wellness among school children across India. The coverage, however, remains inadequate. According to government data, there are 350 counsellors registered in the Manodarpan directory for both school and higher education. This is indicative of the modest capacity that is dwarfed by the expanding scale of demand throughout the country. Mental health of students needs to become a policy priority for all governments in India – at the central and state levels, as well as across private institutions. Quality of India’s future human capital is fundamental to realising the national dream of Vikasit Bharat 2047.

(Dr. Shamika Ravi (Member, EAC-PM) and Saanvi Mehrotra is a Student, Class XII, NPS Bangalore.)

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.