new Delhi: a day later three students committed suicide In Rajasthan’s coaching hub, Kota, local authorities have issued directives to coaching institutes to ensure the mental health of children and set up a remedial center that provides recorded lectures in an effort to prevent such incidents in future. does.
Kota district collector and senior police officials held a meeting with representatives of coaching institutes of Allen Career Institute, where the three students were enrolled, to take stock of the situation on Tuesday afternoon.
The institutes have been asked to check that students do not bunk any class and to loop in the parents if they do so. They have been directed to make arrangements for a separate remedial center where students can attend/listen to the recorded lectures in case they miss any class.
“We have given instructions to all the coaching centers and asked them to make a robust arrangement within the next 15 days,” district collector OP Bankar told ThePrint.
He added, “We have also asked the institutes to organize counseling sessions for the students. In fact, we have our own executives go to coaching centers for motivational talks and we try to tell the students that getting IIT admission should not be their only goal in life, they should be open minded.
The directions were issued as the three students who committed suicide on Monday were reportedly under stress as they had missed their lectures. Classmates and teachers at the coaching center told the police that the three were far behind other students and the pressure got to them.
This is not the first time that the authorities are issuing instructions to the coaching centers on the mental health front of the students.
In 2015, the state government made guidelines For coaching centers they were required to have a “stress free” environment, make room for recreational activities for the students at the center and ensure that the students get at least one day off in a week.
The government also asked the institutes to limit the class size to a maximum of 80 students instead of 200 students, which was the practice in most of the institutes.
Earlier this year, the district collector also introduced fee refund guidelines for institutions, which meant that students would be able to get a full refund of their fees if they wanted to leave the course midway.
However, students claim that the guidelines are not implemented properly and once they are at the coaching centre, all they can think about is studying and scoring better in the next test.
Speaking to ThePrint over the phone, Mohan Kumar, a student enrolled at an institute in Kota for engineering entrance, said, “Once we start our preparation, it is time to finish the syllabus and get better marks in the next internal exam. is about. This is the kind of competition for which no one prepared us but teachers in coaching classes tell us that if we are able to deal with this stress, then only we will be able to crack IIT.
Another student, Krishna Sahu, Kumar’s roommate said, “We are competing not only with other students in other coaching centers but also with our friends and roommates and this pressure becomes very unhealthy. Doesn’t think about entertainment or our mental health.”
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