The New IIT Preparation App, and what makes it The Best Move by any Government in curbing rising Student Suicides so far

We are not even half way through the year, and Kota – the coaching hub for the hyper-competitive engineering and medical school exams – has reported 5 student suicide cases already. Just rewind to last month when India learnt of the death of a young girl who jumped off a building. The shocking bit was this girl from Delhi had cleared JEE, but she took her life because she was not satisfied with her results. Others have either hanged themselves or set ablaze.

This has been going on for a decade now in this city that reinvented itself in the late '90s as a coaching hub. But successive governments have come and gone without making too much of a difference to the unhealthy environment that's building up in this city slowly for years now. Except for a few counseling sessions when the media heat is on, no significant Centre-state government ordered efforts have been made to address the issues of students. Precisely why, more than 70 students have committed suicide in the past five years here, including 29 just last year - a rate much higher than the national average of 10.6 suicides per 100,000 people in 2014, reported by the National Crime Records Bureau.

After the records have started showing worrying trends, Kota district administration has tried to start a few activities to instill positivity among aspirants. There are helpline centres to address grievances, counselors to tell students about multiple career options, ‘Fun Day’ on weekends to encourage students to relieve their stress via recreational activities like dancing, singing, painting, doing breathing exercises. Several guidelines to coaching institutes have been given including starting weekly offs for students, augmenting the number of counsellors, providing fees refund etc. Students are being told that success or failure in competitive examinations is not end of the world, but the efforts have lacked in making a significant impact to the suicide toll numbers.

At a time like this, the recent move by the Centre to come up with an IIT preparation App and release solved question papers of all joint entrance examinations held in the last 50 years, comes as a huge respite for those who aspire to crack IIT hereon. First, here's what Smriti Irani’s HRD Ministry is planning to do:

- Release solved question papers of all joint entrance examinations held in the last 50 years free-of-cost through an app and a portal (in next two months)

*This content will be available in 13 languages

- Prepare questions for JEE exams keeping in mind the Class XII syllabus to reduce the difficulty level of the JEE

- Ask IITs to help aspirants with video and audio lectures

- Take action against fake universities who harass students to cough up money in the middle of academic session without any disclosure

Currently, more than 1.25 lakh students head to coaching institutes in Kota every year with dreams of cracking the highly competitive entrance exams. They pay anywhere between 50,000 and a lakh for annual tuition, but it’s only 10,000 students, even fewer, who are accepted. Rising middle-class aspirations, parents' unrealistic ambitions for their children, poor teaching standards in schools and a fiercely competitive college admissions race have spawned a 2000-crore test preparation industry here in the past few decades.

Psychiatrists helping depressed students in Kota say some students are unable to study, concentrate, remember, sleep or eat in the rigorous study schedule and high-pressure environment here. Adding to this is the stress of living alone. They often complain of headaches and breathlessness. Many just weep. They feel guilty because their parents have spent so much money and have high expectations. Counsellors in Kota reveal that the biggest stresser is the batch-shuffling system. If the bimonthly test scores are low, students suddenly find themselves moved to a group with low-scorers and mediocre teachers. The best teachers go to the top groups. This keeps the students on the edge all the time. The parents keep calling them to scold.

If the Test App developed is well designed and functions well, all of the above problems will no longer remain problems. Moreover, students would no longer have to head to Kota and get exploited and harassed at the hands of the private coaching centres here.

In a butshell, Coaching for IIT will become accessible on fingertips, student-friendly because of multiple languages, will be free-of-cost, enriching because of lectures by IIT professors themselves and free of any harassment by private institutes. Students won’t have to move a different city from their hometowns, away from parents, friends or relatives for preparing in a high pressured environment all alone.

Let's hope this decision will see the light of the day, and instill fresh hope in the lives of students from here.