Delhi: The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that it was incorrect to hold coaching centers responsible for the rising number of student suicides, which have mostly occurred in Kota, Rajasthan, because parents’ high expectations are pushing their kids to take their own lives.
Judge Sanjiv Khanna’s bench declined to consider a petition calling for legislation establishing minimum standards for private coaching facilities and regulation of these businesses, stating that “the problem is of parents and not of coaching institutes.”
The bench, which also included justice SVN Bhatti, expressed awareness of the nearly 24 suicides that have been reported this year in the Kota district of Rajasthan, where the number of schools offering engineering and medical coaching to students has increased. The bench stated, “Suicides are not happening because of the coaching institutes.” These occur as a result of the kids’ inability to live up to their parents’ expectations. There might be a lot more fatalities.
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Aniruddha Narayan Malpani, a doctor from Mumbai, filed a public interest lawsuit (PIL) accusing coaching centers of pushing students to the brink of death by treating them like “commodities” and working them up for their own financial gain.
Advocate Mohini Priya claimed in the petition that although suicides in Kota have made news, all private coaching institutions are subject to the same phenomena and are not subject to any laws or regulations. The majority of us would prefer not to have coaching institutes, the bench stated. However, parents now have high expectations and exams have become quite competitive. In competitive tests, students lose out by half a mark or a mark.
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The court advised the petitioner to file a case with the Central government, stating, “How can we direct a legislation on this issue,” or to go before the Rajasthan High Court, since the suicide incidents mentioned in the petition mostly involved Kota. In her request for permission to withdraw, Advocate Priya stated that the petitioner would rather move on with a representation. The Court approved the withdrawal of the petition.
The petition argued that “student suicides is a grave human rights concern and the state’s apathy towards protecting these young minds who are our country’s future and their constitutional right to live with dignity guaranteed under Article 21 clearly reflects upon the Center’s lackadaisical attitude in enacting a law.”
In an effort to regulate and supervise the operations of private coaching institutes, the Rajasthan government recently launched the Rajasthan Coaching Institutes (supervise and Regulation) Bill, 2023 and the Rajasthan Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority Bill, 2023. The two measures that have not yet been signed into law included keeping an eye on the price of the required study materials and other fees that coaching centers charge.
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“The coaching institute industry has now turned into a market where students are tricked, pursued, and pilfered,” the petition stated. It’s a “industry” that prioritizes financial gain over students’ welfare. It went on to say that these kids, who are just 14 to 16 years old, lack the mental ability to handle pressure because they are suddenly exposed to such a competitive environment.
The petition stated, “An individual student has now become merely a product in the hands of the coaching institutes,” citing Kota’s coaching industry’s around ₹ 5,000 crore market. The statement went on to say, “Education is being commercialized and in the absence of proper regulation, the students are being exploited,” taking large sums of money from middle-class and lower-middle-class students whose parents risk everything for their kids’ future. The pressure is increased by social disconnection and little family engagement, it continued.
