Suicides in Students

Why in News?

• Recently, The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB’s) Accidental Deaths and Suicide in India (ADSI) report 2021 shows student suicides had gone up drastically during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and have been steadily rising in the last five years.

Highlights

• Over 13,000 students died by in 2021 in India at the rate of more than 35 every day, a rise of 4.5% from the 12,526 deaths in 2020 with 864 out of 10,732 suicides being due to “failure in examination” according to the latest data as per NCRB’s ADSI report 2021.
• Since 1995, the country lost the highest number of students to suicides in 2021, while nearly 2 lakh of them have died by suicide in the past 25 years.
• The death by suicide of students has increased by 32.15% since 2017, when 9,905 students died by suicide.
• Maharashtra had the highest number of student suicides in 2021 with 1,834, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
• The report also showed the percentage of women student suicide was at a five-year low of 43.49%, while men student suicides made up 56.51% of the total student suicides.
• In 2017, 4,711 women students died by suicide, while in 2021 such deaths increased to 5,693.
• As per Ministry of Education, 122 students from IITs, NITs, central universities and other central institutions died by suicide over 2014-21.
• 68 of 122 belonged to the scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST) or other backward classes (OBC).
• Suicides are a growing concern in Kota, India, a hub for engineering and medical entrance exams preparation.
• As of January 2023, 22 students have died in Kota since 2022 and around 121 have died since 2011.