In order to help distress students studying in India’s premier engineering institute, several campuses of Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) are taking steps to help the students. The action is taken by the IITs after an increase in the number of suicides and attempt to suicide cases.
In a report published in Economic Times, counselling is being provided to the students of IIT Banaras Hindu University (BHU), IIT Madras. Parent-teachers-meeting is being held in IIT Delhi so as to increase interaction with parents. To de-stress, IIT Guwahati has formed creativity centre in the campus, where students can sing and dance.
Due to enormous academic pressure and expectations from parents, many a times students go into depression. Since last year, about 10 suicide and attempt to suicide cases have taken place in IITs.
Soumyo Mukherji, head of student affairs at IIT Bombay said, “First-year students are often found burnt out. Most students are not well-rounded personalities as a result of 18 hours of coaching for last three years before cracking JEE.”
There have been instances when students do not want to become engineers but due to pressure from parents they take admissions. G Ranga Rao, chief advisor of Mitr, a committee that deals with the cases of depression at IIT Madras said, “Focus here is more on proactive steps as most students do not come forward.”
IIT Guwahati Director Gautam Biswas said no suicide has been reported since the introduction of creativity centres at the campus.
As per Delhi-based Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, those who come to seek counselling in the age group of 18 to 25 , 70 % are studying engineering and medicine.
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