The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Driven to take the extreme step

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Driven to take the extreme step

S. Vijay Kumar

When parents of a Standard IX student heard no response after knocking the door at their Ellis Nagar residence on Thursday, they presumed that the boy might have slept, tired after writing his annual examination.

Little did they realise that their 14-year-old son would have committed suicide out of examination fear or pressure. D. Sridharan was found hanging from the ceiling. Though he was a class topper for several years, police suspect that his performance in the Mathematics examination might have been poor, forcing him to take the extreme step.

This is not an isolated incident. Come public examinations or their results, such incidents get reported frequently. "Whenever the gap between performance and expectation widens, the students get demoralised and disgusted. On an average, at least 15 students commit suicide in Madurai every year mostly due to pressure from teachers or parents," says a police official.

A few weeks back, a Standard IX girl was admitted to a private hospital with `low pressure.' More recently, a Plus Two student was admitted with `high blood pressure.' In both the cases, the doctors confirmed that the students were subject to pressure for scoring high marks. Even while convalescing, friends of the "patient" were reading out lessons for him.

Parents to blame?

Psychiatrists say sustained pressure on students to come out with outstanding results and admission in premier institutions forces them into depression whenever they feel unable to rise up to the expectations of their parents or teachers. The parents should also desist from comparing their children's performance with that of others because that would result in inferiority complex.

Senior teachers, who admit that they insist on students to improve their performance, suggest that Plus Two students taking the public and the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examinations should undergo a counselling session to enable them balance their stress level.

"It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to gauge the performance level of students and limit their expectations accordingly. There is no point in exerting continuous pressure on children," says the Commissioner of Police, Vijay Kumar.

Once the students get into the IX or XI standard, the pressure begins to mount. Special classes are conducted even on Sundays and, more pathetically, they are forced to spend their summer and winter vacations in classrooms.

While the target is 100 per cent results for school managements, the parents see only two career options for their children - engineering or medicine.

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