One in seven HEI students reported severe distress, Finds SC panel survey

A Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force survey of over 2.43 lakh higher education students found that 15% experienced severe distress in the past six months, while 9% reported frequent suicidal thoughts.

New Delhi: About 15 per cent students in higher education institutions have experienced a period in the previous six months when they felt overwhelmed or distressed, while nine per cent reported experiencing suicidal thoughts, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Supreme Court-appointed panel examining student suicides.

The survey findings, accessed by PTI, are expected to be part of the final report of the National Task Force (NTF) to address mental health concerns of students and prevent suicides in higher educational institutions (HEIs)”, which is expected to be submitted by October 31.

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The survey findings assume significance in the wake of renewed debate on student suicides following death of two students at IIT Delhi and Bombay which have led to widespread outrage.

The SC-appointed panel had earlier this year submitted an interim report in which it had noted that the experience of higher education for students has been found to be marked by “deep-rooted social discrimination, rampant sexual harassment in medical and engineering colleges; gender discrimination by faculty in medical, law and state universities, in terms of academic support, hostel curfews and moral policing; caste identification by NEET-UG and JEE ranks; caste-based humiliation and discrimination in terms of admission, grading, language gaps and faculty attention”.

According to the student survey conducted by the NTF with responses from over 2.43 lakh students, 67 per cent of which belonged to SC, ST and OBC category, about

34 per cent reported feeling like an outsider on campus to varying extent.

“About 15 per cent students recalled a period in the previous six months when they felt very overwhelmed or distressed, or experienced low moods or anxiety continuously for several weeks. Nine percent reported experiencing suicidal thoughts often or very often in the past year.

“Fifty-six per cent students indicated having trust in the administration to handle serious issues fairly while roughly 32 per cent said their institute did not offer counselling services,” the survey found.

According to officials, concerns around academic choices and frequent worries related to employment were common.

“Responses to many other items, including open-text fields, are still being analysed. Moreover, due to non-representativeness of the current sample, the observations need to be taken as preliminary and tentative,” a senior official told PTI. The official, however, noted that emerging patterns suggest urgent action for standardized student support systems, implementation of measures such as faculty training, stigma-reduction, crisis SOPs, regular monitoring with quality-data and building responsive and transparent administration for addressing student mental health.

In addition to the student survey, the NTF conducted a series of institutional visits and stakeholder consultations.

“A total of 30 meetings at 19 institutional sites have been conducted so far across

Delhi and NCR, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam and West Bengal, spanning different types of institutions and disciplines. Due to the very small numbers visited, this is not a representative sample and hence the views provided will be taken in that light.

“Despite institutional limits and apprehension, students at most HEIs spoke extensively about their academic, social, mental health, faculty-related, and administrative concerns,” the official said.

The academic problems reported by students had to do with strict attendance policies; demanding schedules and academic and clinical overload (medical and allied fields); on-call hours for medical students stretching well beyond mandated as well as human limits; paranoid levels of competition due to relative grading and stringent placement criteria in engineering colleges.

Inconsistent and insufficient academic support due to faculty shortages in state universities; inadequate practical training leaving students under-prepared for practice in dental, nursing, mental health educational institutions and PhD supervisors being either neglectful or over controlling and exploitative, are among the other issues reported by students.

The NTF was constituted by the Supreme Court in March last year to address the rising incidence of student suicides and to examine mental health and well-being concerns among students in HEIs across the country.

The task force is headed by Justice S Ravindra Bhat and comprises a distinguished panel of experts, including renowned psychiatrist Alok Sarin; Mary E John, former director, Centre for Women’s Development Studies; Arman Ali, Executive Director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People; Rajendar Kachroo, founder, Aman Satya Kachroo Trust; Seema Mehrotra, Professor of clinical psychology, NIMHANS, among others.