Parental pressure proves fatal for students!

High School Certificate Examination 2012 in Odisha will be remembered for theft of question papers, damage of answer sheets, leakage of results before publication and also suicide of 10 girl students after the declaration of the results.

The last one is the most worrisome as 10 girl students committed suicide soon after the results were declared. The tragedy doesn't end here as five more students, all of them girls, attempted suicide for the same reason. Odisha has been facing such unfortunate incidents for the last few years but not of this magnitude. "Earlier, only one or two such cases were reported from across the state. But this is the first time in the history of the state that 10 students committed suicide on the very same day," says H. Patimishra, a senior journalist.

Banalata Sahoo in Kandhamal district committed suicide by jumping into a well after getting failed. Similarly, Mami Gouda of Digapahandi Govt. Girl's School ended her life by hanging herself at her residence. In another shocking incident, Sasmita Sethi in Bhadrak district burnt herself to death. Out of 10 incidents three were occurred alone in Jajpur district of Odisha. Subhashree Sahoo of Badalpada high school and Pratima Jena of Haripur high school of Jajpur committed suicide by hanging themselves. The third suicidal incident was reported from Dharmashala block. Sarojinee Samal of Damodar high school ended her life. In Cuttack district, two girls committed suicide while Balasore reported one such case.

So why were girls only? Is it accidental or is there any mystery behind this? Even last year three out of four students committed suicides were girls. Psychiatrist Dr Sudipta Panigrahi's says, ‘it is purely an outcome of parents’ pressure and nothing else. Today parents expect much from the children which is beyond their capacity. They are knowingly ignoring their children's ability. Which results in such fatal incidents.”

It has also been seen that, students scoring more than 85% of marks in the exams have committed suicide. To resolve such issues Psychologists have stressed on proper counseling of students before declaration of results. When asked why the girls only from the villages have committed suicide, Dr. Panigrahi said, “Time has changed. Now there is no difference between the mentality of parents of villages and towns regarding exam results. Everyone expects his/her son or daughter would pass with good marks.”

However, Psychologists are not agreeing on gender bias in these cases. Dr. Dhaneswar Sahoo, a consulting psychologist, observes, ‘Parental pressure is the main reason behind these incidents. Students with less stress tolerance power and weak coping mechanism always fail to overcome this pressure and end their life.”

Giving more information, Dr Sahoo says, in Andhra Pradesh a counseling system has been developed to train the students to cope up with these types of pressures. Psychiatrist and Social workers are being engaged in this work. But in Odisha such type of counseling system is yet to be developed.