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I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide r

by a_d 8y ago

I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams are a problem and there are a complex set of contributing factors that make the exams "high pressure" - social norms, lottery-ticket-out-of-middle-class-mindset, lack of other options, population, demographics (large number of young people) etc. - but the article is trying to make a link between the high pressure exam and suicides, that seems a bit problematic to me. This exam has existed for more than 50 years, and has always been very hard and high pressure. This article states that "from the start of 2014 to November 2017, 45 Kota students committed suicide". Please make up your mind about the facts, but it seems like lazy journalism and a stretch to make the connection between the exam and suicides without accounting for deviations from per capita rates. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_India [2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-students-are-in-Kota https://www.quora.com/How-many-students-are-in-Kota

lozenge 8y ago
India's population has boomed in 50 years but has the number of available places at prestigious institutions boomed with it?
- rakamotog 8y ago
  Yes! Exponentially in last 10 years. When I took the exam a rank of 2.5 k was almost equal to not getting a rank. But now a rank of 10k has better opportunities! Colleges mushroomed from 6 to 23!
  - devang1994 8y ago
    Getting CS at Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Madras etc still requires a rank under 500 or so. Correct me if I am wrong but all the headline grabbing salaries are still restricted to these courses and institutes.
    - pycassa 8y ago
      No way rank around 500 gives you CS in those colleges. Mine is 595 and did electrical engineering in Kharagpur. Electrical engineering is after CS and EC. Basically Your rank decides what institute and what branch you will be graduating in. Even though Kharagpur is on par with the institutes you mentioned, people don't prefer it as it's not in a metro City.
    - rakamotog 8y ago
      Not exactly. CS in tier 2 IIT's also gets you those headlines. Basically the numbers decrease (1 from IIT Hyderabad vs 5+ from IIT B IMO)
- trinkletingas 8y ago
  No.
- intended 8y ago
  India’s pop has been booming for more than 50 years, and we only got independence recently enough that institution building is measured in less than 100 years (to be fair many old colleges exist with older roots, but for the sake of comparison with the entire population, they are a drop in the bucket.) Unfortunately time is not on our side, as it takes a long time to make institutions and good institutional habits. To compound the problem- for most of 50 years there was huge bran drain. All those people who would become professors, or experts used their English advantage to move abroad and use their talents better. Not to mention the years lost due to license raj. I’d say things are slowly working out and improving. Whether it’s in time to help the demographics, I don’t know.
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    Sorry - beg to differ. 70 years is plenty of time to form good institutions. Having lived in multiple countries, it is often clear to me that the reason for any country's woes almost always stems from their culture. Things may be different now, but historically Indian culture valued credentials and degrees a lot more than they did gaining knowledge. And many aspects of culture interfere with education. India is a country where relationships matter a lot more than, say, in the US. Part of that dynamic is the pressure to do favors for each other. This can be a huge problem when trying to objectively measure performance. I know a teacher in a 3rd world country who was given a hard time by society for not going easy on a student who happened to be a child of a relative. Stuff like that. Culture is hard to change. Another example from another comment here: The fact that many students go to school, expect to learn little, and then spend hours with a tutor after school. I've spoken to parents from similar countries who: 1. Viewed the fact that their kids had tutors as a status symbol (clear barrier to change!) 2. Seriously could not comprehend the notion that teachers are supposed to teach well enough that going to a tutoring academy would not be required. I kid you not - quite a few refused to believe I was a top student and did not have a private tutor, and that my school had top teachers. For them, that's simply not how the world works. With the right culture, you can build great institutions in a lot less than 70 years. But examples like the above are examples of a culture getting in the way of institution building, and you end up clashing with the culture at every step.
shubhamjain 8y ago
I am from Kota too and your argument is just nit-picking. Of course, when you're blaming high-pressure exams, you're also blaming every factor related to it. Your analysis of suicide rates fails to consider that these are very young students barely in the age group of 15-19 and the cause is singular (high-pressure parenting). But suicide rate is just one symptom that this industry engenders. The immense pressure these kids are subject to is depressing as fuck. They (and their parents) all have been fed the dream that working 15 hours/day is a sure-shot way to make it in. And once you make in IIT, you don't have to fret about anything else. Some kids have been working towards this dream, right from 6-7th grade. Yes! six years before they are to take the actual exam. I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. Looking back, it just escapes me how so many people can come to believe that a single exam is going to narrate your whole fate in life.
- chii 8y ago
  > I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people?
  - shubhamjain 8y ago
    > so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people? Theoretically, it can be replicated. The tools that I have used to learn everything are accessible to most of the people I have met. But, whatever may be the reasons, it just doesn't happen.
    - devang1994 8y ago
      I am very curious what are these tools you talk about? I am often asked by students at my old high school about what they can do if they dont want to study for JEE and I havent really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.
    - 8y ago
intended 8y ago
India and the other countries which have this exam system have suicides. India just doesn’t have the reporting or data to showcase it. This will improve over time and the scope of it will be clear.
DanBC 8y ago
> India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 You need a little bit of caution here. It's very difficult to compare rates of death with other countries because there are different definitions for suicide, and different levels of recording and reporting. In particular, there are problems in some areas of India of under recording deaths. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X13000245 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X1... > In the last two decades, the suicide rate has increased from 7.9 to 10.3 per 100,000,8 with very high rates in some southern regions.9 In a study published in The Lancet in June 2012, the estimated number of suicides in India in 2010 was about 187,000.10 According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB); state of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have registered a consistently higher number of suicidal deaths during the last few years and together accounted for 56.2% of the total suicides reported in the country. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state (16.5% share of the population) has reported a comparatively lower percentage of suicidal deaths, accounting for only 3.6% of the total suicides reported in this country, but this researcher feels that this is due to the underestimation of suicide cases in this area. There is a general agreement that previous statistics on the incidence of suicide in the Lucknow region were grossly inadequate and that their comparison based on the figures available is inaccurate and misleading. This causes the suicide problem to be underestimated and, thus, neglected by the government, although this problem seems to be universal. In addition, the features of deaths due to suicide are changing constantly, revealing complex social and cultural developments.11 Prichard and Amanullah (2007)12 suggested that, to avoid the under-reporting of suicides, both formal suicide verdicts and other violent deaths should be considered together because the other violent deaths may include hidden suicides.

by a_d 8y ago

lozenge 8y ago

India's population has boomed in 50 years but has the number of available places at prestigious institutions boomed with it?

rakamotog 8y ago
Yes! Exponentially in last 10 years. When I took the exam a rank of 2.5 k was almost equal to not getting a rank. But now a rank of 10k has better opportunities! Colleges mushroomed from 6 to 23!
- devang1994 8y ago
  Getting CS at Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Madras etc still requires a rank under 500 or so. Correct me if I am wrong but all the headline grabbing salaries are still restricted to these courses and institutes.
  - pycassa 8y ago
    No way rank around 500 gives you CS in those colleges. Mine is 595 and did electrical engineering in Kharagpur. Electrical engineering is after CS and EC. Basically Your rank decides what institute and what branch you will be graduating in. Even though Kharagpur is on par with the institutes you mentioned, people don't prefer it as it's not in a metro City.
  - rakamotog 8y ago
    Not exactly. CS in tier 2 IIT's also gets you those headlines. Basically the numbers decrease (1 from IIT Hyderabad vs 5+ from IIT B IMO)
trinkletingas 8y ago
No.
intended 8y ago
India’s pop has been booming for more than 50 years, and we only got independence recently enough that institution building is measured in less than 100 years (to be fair many old colleges exist with older roots, but for the sake of comparison with the entire population, they are a drop in the bucket.) Unfortunately time is not on our side, as it takes a long time to make institutions and good institutional habits. To compound the problem- for most of 50 years there was huge bran drain. All those people who would become professors, or experts used their English advantage to move abroad and use their talents better. Not to mention the years lost due to license raj. I’d say things are slowly working out and improving. Whether it’s in time to help the demographics, I don’t know.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  Sorry - beg to differ. 70 years is plenty of time to form good institutions. Having lived in multiple countries, it is often clear to me that the reason for any country's woes almost always stems from their culture. Things may be different now, but historically Indian culture valued credentials and degrees a lot more than they did gaining knowledge. And many aspects of culture interfere with education. India is a country where relationships matter a lot more than, say, in the US. Part of that dynamic is the pressure to do favors for each other. This can be a huge problem when trying to objectively measure performance. I know a teacher in a 3rd world country who was given a hard time by society for not going easy on a student who happened to be a child of a relative. Stuff like that. Culture is hard to change. Another example from another comment here: The fact that many students go to school, expect to learn little, and then spend hours with a tutor after school. I've spoken to parents from similar countries who: 1. Viewed the fact that their kids had tutors as a status symbol (clear barrier to change!) 2. Seriously could not comprehend the notion that teachers are supposed to teach well enough that going to a tutoring academy would not be required. I kid you not - quite a few refused to believe I was a top student and did not have a private tutor, and that my school had top teachers. For them, that's simply not how the world works. With the right culture, you can build great institutions in a lot less than 70 years. But examples like the above are examples of a culture getting in the way of institution building, and you end up clashing with the culture at every step.

shubhamjain 8y ago

I am from Kota too and your argument is just nit-picking. Of course, when you're blaming high-pressure exams, you're also blaming every factor related to it. Your analysis of suicide rates fails to consider that these are very young students barely in the age group of 15-19 and the cause is singular (high-pressure parenting). But suicide rate is just one symptom that this industry engenders. The immense pressure these kids are subject to is depressing as fuck. They (and their parents) all have been fed the dream that working 15 hours/day is a sure-shot way to make it in. And once you make in IIT, you don't have to fret about anything else. Some kids have been working towards this dream, right from 6-7th grade. Yes! six years before they are to take the actual exam. I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. Looking back, it just escapes me how so many people can come to believe that a single exam is going to narrate your whole fate in life.

chii 8y ago
> I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people?
- shubhamjain 8y ago
  > so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people? Theoretically, it can be replicated. The tools that I have used to learn everything are accessible to most of the people I have met. But, whatever may be the reasons, it just doesn't happen.
  - devang1994 8y ago
    I am very curious what are these tools you talk about? I am often asked by students at my old high school about what they can do if they dont want to study for JEE and I havent really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.
  - 8y ago

intended 8y ago

India and the other countries which have this exam system have suicides. India just doesn’t have the reporting or data to showcase it. This will improve over time and the scope of it will be clear.

DanBC 8y ago

> India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 You need a little bit of caution here. It's very difficult to compare rates of death with other countries because there are different definitions for suicide, and different levels of recording and reporting. In particular, there are problems in some areas of India of under recording deaths. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X13000245 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X1... > In the last two decades, the suicide rate has increased from 7.9 to 10.3 per 100,000,8 with very high rates in some southern regions.9 In a study published in The Lancet in June 2012, the estimated number of suicides in India in 2010 was about 187,000.10 According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB); state of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have registered a consistently higher number of suicidal deaths during the last few years and together accounted for 56.2% of the total suicides reported in the country. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state (16.5% share of the population) has reported a comparatively lower percentage of suicidal deaths, accounting for only 3.6% of the total suicides reported in this country, but this researcher feels that this is due to the underestimation of suicide cases in this area. There is a general agreement that previous statistics on the incidence of suicide in the Lucknow region were grossly inadequate and that their comparison based on the figures available is inaccurate and misleading. This causes the suicide problem to be underestimated and, thus, neglected by the government, although this problem seems to be universal. In addition, the features of deaths due to suicide are changing constantly, revealing complex social and cultural developments.11 Prichard and Amanullah (2007)12 suggested that, to avoid the under-reporting of suicides, both formal suicide verdicts and other violent deaths should be considered together because the other violent deaths may include hidden suicides.