Kota Diaries | In India’s Coaching Capital, Diamonds are Forged Under Pressure. So Are Deaths – News18

It’s 1pm and the streets of Kota are just starting to come alive. Students, in their coaching uniforms, are off their morning classes and gather around for snacks and a brief catching-up session. The tension is palpable even outside classrooms. This is a usual Friday afternoon in Kota, the country’s coaching capital.

Kota has been in the news a lot more frequently this year. With 23 suicides reported among students preparing for Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) – two of India’s most high-profile exams – the city administration is on its toes and coaching institutes are being extremely cautious. This is the highest suicide count reported in the district in the last eight years.

When this reporter reached Kota on Friday, the count stood at 21. At the time of publishing this report, it had gone up to 23, with two more medical aspirants reported to have died by suicide in separate incidents on Sunday evening.

From asking hostels, flat owners and all paying guest accommodations to mandatorily install spring-loaded ceiling fans, anti-suicide nets in buildings and allowing a weekly off to better monitoring of student activities by hostel wardens, the district administration has been passing directions left, right and centre, many of which have been deemed cosmetic and controversial.

The measures do little to address the toxic mix of factors at the root of the problem — fierce competition, realisation of actual aptitude, consecutively scoring less in class tests, feeling of being left behind with different batches and different teachers for class toppers, parental expectations, disconnect with parents and lack of mental support.

Shape Up or Ship Out?

Students coming to Kota either settle into the grind within the first year or drop out. There is no in-between. Most students come down to Kota after Class 10 to join coaching institutes to prepare for JEE or NEET, the country’s largest and toughest entrance exams conducted every year for entry into premier engineering and medical institutes such as the IITs and AIIMS, respectively.

Some of Kota’s top-ranked coaching institutes are known for churning out toppers each year. When News18 visited some of the institutes, the classrooms were packed.

According to students and teachers, a batch that begins with 180-200 students at the beginning of the year, thins out to 100-110 by the end of the session.

The schedule run five hours at a stretch with 15-minute breaks between classes. Once classes are over, students take a small break to rush back to their respective accommodations to study again for five to six hours before turning in for the same routine the next day.

“Some students are just too bright, then there are others who improve over time and get settled within first six to seven months. Another group is composed of those who make their peace with scoring low constantly and slowly drop out by missing classes. They just stay put till they appear for the entrance exam. But there are a few who, not being able to keep up with the tough competition, get too stressed, keep it to themselves and before we get to know, they have pushed themselves to the extreme end,” said a faculty member at one of the top institutes, requesting anonymity.

Neha Patel, a NEET aspirant, who came here two years ago said that it was her father’s dream that she became a doctor. And she intends to fulfil that dream. “It is really tough to be here and it took me a year to get sorted. It’s not just the academics, but the overall environment where all you hear or see is about JEE-NEET and nothing else. No wonder many students, who start scoring low in the weekly tests start dropping out of class. Some are able to continue with it while others fall out of the circuit and even take the extreme step,” said Patel, who hails from UP’s Bareilly.

Teachers and institutes start scouting for star performers at the very beginning and soon filter the others out. Potential toppers are then moved to a different batch with dedicated top-ranking teachers assigned to the classes. “This automatically creates a complex among those who have not been scoring well. In a class of 180-200, there are students who get just 100 in a 720-marks paper compared to those who are scoring above 600. Those not even scoring the average are already stressed and the categorisation of low scorers and top scorers makes it even worse. This, at least, can be fixed,” the teacher quoted above added.

It’s only after so many suicides this year, students said, that the district administration has asked all coaching institutes to give one day off to students a day before the exam. All institutes conduct weekly and fortnightly tests.

So do the students get any recreational time? Do the institutes take the lead on any stress-busting activities?

“No. There’s no break of this sort to freshen up the mind. It’s just studying all through. We haven’t even seen any tourist spots in the two-three years we have been here. It’s absolutely grey,” said Udit Singh, a JEE aspirant from Madhya Pradesh.

Back-Breaking Expectations

Scoring 90% or more at the school-level is not a measure of how well students would be able to perform in coaching. Even students who used to score 99% in school are in for a shock when they land in Kota.

“What you scored in school in a class of 40-50 students is not even remotely close to the course syllabus taught here, both in terms of vastness as well as in the level of difficulty. We study half of MBBS here at coaching itself. And then you are suddenly competing with hundreds and thousands of students across batches, as the weekly/fortnightly exam is conducted for everyone across batches. Those who keep getting low marks get quite depressed,” said Sandeep Kumar, a NEET aspirant from Bihar.

Most students arriving in Kota belong to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

Kumar said even though students coming for JEE preparation are younger and have limited attempts at cracking the entrance exam, more suicides have been reported among NEET aspirants, mainly because the number of seats for medical colleges are too few.

Every year, around 22 lakh students appear for NEET across the country, but there are only around 40,000 seats in government colleges. Most who come to Kota, cannot afford private medical colleges.

“There are many students who come from low-income families and are constantly under this burden and guilt of not being able to perform even though their parents have taken loans or raised money by selling off land or property,” said Kumar.

Nitish Singh, a JEE aspirant from Bihar, said that even though he had got 89% in Class 10, and there are those who got 98%, but after joining coaching, the real aptitude emerges. “I now score more than any of those school toppers. Class 10 marks cannot decide one’s aptitude. Many students are not able to cope with this drop in their performance and just start missing classes. They start sticking to their rooms for they can’t tell their parents about the same,” said Singh.

What Counselling Experts Say

Officials at the coaching institutes have maintained silence on the issue. Queries and emails to some of the top coaching institutes from News18 hadn’t received a response by Monday morning.

“There is pressure in Kota, but the same is true for coaching classes in other parts of the country as well. There are many students who realise their actual aptitude only after they come here and want to go back, but parents still feel they can cope and want them to continue. There are others who come only to fulfil parents’ wishes or because they have been forced to enrol here. There are dedicated cells to help students with academics as well as for counselling and many students do come out and seek help,” said a counselling expert engaged with one of the institutes, requesting anonymity.

But there are students, the counselling expert added, who do not reach out for help or even share how they feel with classmates or friends. “In such cases, it’s the parents as well as hostel wardens who must catch the warning signals early on. There is always a pattern with the student remaining withdrawn for a significant period, avoiding classes and even meals. The hostel authorities must alert parents at the first such sign. Parents must talk to their children regularly and listen to them talk instead of raising questions in the first go. Like any other disease, early detection can actually help heal what a student must be going through,” the expert said.

If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata)