Suicide spree: IIT-Kharagpur to get professional counsellors - Indian Express

Suicide spree: IIT-Kharagpur to get professional counsellors

The recent spate of suicide incidents taking place inside the campus of IIT- Kharagpur has forced the authorities to involve professional counsellors to help students cope up with stress.

Written by Shiv Sahay Singh | Kolkata | Published on:July 17, 2009 3:58 am

The recent spate of suicide incidents taking place inside the campus of IIT- Kharagpur has forced the authorities to involve professional counsellors to help students cope up with stress.

“The counselling centre has a broader objective. It will not only look after the academic side but will see whether the students are suffering from any personal stress,” said D Gunasekaran, Registrar IIT-Kharagpur.

Gunasekaran said that apart from the faculty members who will counsel the students,professional counsellors would be hired to help the students de-stress. The institute has already placed an advertisement for hiring professional counselors but before it finalises on it,the faculty members will serve as counsellors.

Institute officials say all the suicide incidents are not related to academic stress as there are a number of cases where the students took the extreme step because of personal problems.

According to faculty members,students join the institute at a very young age — 18 and 19 years old — and thus they suffer from home sickness. “So it is necessary for the institute to ensure that students do not feel isolated,” they said.

They added that the previous concept of faculty members as counsellor has not worked and hence it was decided to hire a professional counsellor.

Experts say that those who join the IITs have to go through tough competition and are prone to depression and stress even if they face slight rejection or failure. “The students do not have an aptitude for a job but they are keen to get it only because of peer pressure. The students sometimes suffer from rejection factor when they fail to qualify the interview,” said Prof B K Mathur,a professor of physics and the placement head of the institute.

Mathur added the counsellors will also help the student choose the right kind of job.

“The counselling centre can help a student who has an inclination towards core sciences take a job in that discipline rather than going for software since his peers have done so,” said Mathur.

The institute houses around 8,000 students in its campus that is spread over 2,100 acres.

3 and counting… 

April 23: K Ramananda Rao a fourth-year chemical engineering student committed suicide. According to fellow students,he was not doing well in academics.

June 15: Manoj Kumar,a first-year student,committed suicide. The dead body was recovered a few days after he committed suicide as most of the students were away on vacation.

July 15: Yogendra Kumar Singh,a student who secured 400 rank in this years IIT entrance test,committed suicide. According to reports,he was keen on joining some other institute.

64 - 17th July 2009 - Suicide spree: IIT-Kharagpur to get professional counsellors - Indian Express

Shiv Sahay Singh
Tags : kolkata, IIT-K
Posted: Fri Jul 17 2009, 03:58 hr

The recent spate of suicide incidents taking place inside the campus of IIT- Kharagpur has forced the authorities to involve professional counsellors to help students cope up with stress.

“The counselling centre has a broader objective. It will not only look after the academic side but will see whether the students are suffering from any personal stress,” said D Gunasekaran, Registrar IIT-Kharagpur.

Gunasekaran said that apart from the faculty members who will counsel the students, professional counsellors would be hired to help the students de-stress. The institute has already placed an advertisement for hiring professional counselors but before it finalises on it, the faculty members will serve as counsellors.

Institute officials say all the suicide incidents are not related to academic stress as there are a number of cases where the students took the extreme step because of personal problems.

According to faculty members, students join the institute at a very young age — 18 and 19 years old — and thus they suffer from home sickness. “So it is necessary for the institute to ensure that students do not feel isolated,” they said.

They added that the previous concept of faculty members as counsellor has not worked and hence it was decided to hire a professional counsellor.

Experts say that those who join the IITs have to go through tough competition and are prone to depression and stress even if they face slight rejection or failure. “The students do not have an aptitude for a job but they are keen to get it only because of peer pressure. The students sometimes suffer from rejection factor when they fail to qualify the interview,” said Prof B K Mathur, a professor of physics and the placement head of the institute.

Mathur added the counsellors will also help the student choose the right kind of job.

“The counselling centre can help a student who has an inclination towards core sciences take a job in that discipline rather than going for software since his peers have done so,” said Mathur.

The institute houses around 8,000 students in its campus that is spread over 2,100 acres.

3 and counting...
April 23: K Ramananda Rao a fourth-year chemical engineering student committed suicide. According to fellow students, he was not doing well in academics.

June 15: Manoj Kumar, a first-year student, committed suicide. The dead body was recovered a few days after he committed suicide as most of the students were away on vacation.

July 15: Yogendra Kumar Singh, a student who secured 400 rank in this years IIT entrance test, committed suicide. According to reports, he was keen on joining some other institute.

59 - 16th June 2009 – 3 deaths in 3 months in Indias No 1 Institute

This morning, I received two "pings" on G-Talk from my batchmates at IIT-Kharagpur, and both seemed to be in an excited state. The first one pinged a link that most of them had put on as their Status Message, some story from Outlook. It seemed IIT-Kharagpur had yet again emerged as the No.1 Engg.college in the country in a survey that's normally conducted around this time of the year, during the admissions-counselling period. Not only did it beat the closest competitor, IIT-B, by a huge margin of 90 points, it had also topped the Architecture Schools list.

The implication might have been that IIT-Kgp was in fact the best place for an undergraduate student to be in the country. 

The 2nd ping, however, was quite in contradiction. It was not reconfirmed by anyone else, no news source carried it, and most said that the news wasn't being released "due to ongoing IIT-JEE counselling at IIT-Kgp." Somehow, a lone news source is carrying a report on the incident as of now. Oh, and the incident. Yeah, another student died at IIT-Kgp, nothing new...

Police said they broke into the room at the Madan Mohan Malaviyya hostel in the campus and recovered the body of Manoj Kumar (18) after the hostel cleaning staff complained of a stench emanating from it.

Police said prima facie it appeared to be a case of suicide and investigations were on.
-- The Indian Express

A first year student of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture Department, Manoj Kumar, hailing from Rajasthan, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room in Madan Mohan Malviya Hall of Residence, IIT Kgp. It was just a couple of months ago, that another fourth year student had committed suicide in his hostel room. And who can forget the death of Rohit Kumar due to the institute run Hospital's medical negligence.

A 3rd year dies of Medical Negligence, a fourth year commits suicide a month later, and a fresher now. My batch had already lost Anshu to negligence in the first year itself. And we still are the best institute in the country.

Is this how complacent we've become? Is this the best place for a student to be? Is counselling for potential students more important than counselling suicide probables and taking care of existing students?

We have regular student-administration meetings at the campus, which all students are open to attend. I shall be attending them regularly the coming semester onwards, and shall raise and follow up on issues regarding the state of the hospital as well as allocation of doctors, counsellors and psychologists.

Will you be there?

Let's see...

58 - 15th June 2009 – IIT Student commits suicide- Web India

Manoj Kumar (21), a first year student of Naval Architecture Department of the IIT Kharagpur, was found hanging in his room today.

Police said Manoj, who a brilliant student from Rajasthan, had not left behind any suicide note. The body was first discovered by the fellow students in Madanmohon Malaviya Hall in the campus at about 1230 hrs. They then reported the matter to the institute's authority, who in turn contacted police. The police has taken the body for a postmortem. IIT Chief Security Officer V P Singh said it apparently seems that Manoj could not bear with the pressure of the study and was suffering from depression.

''However, we are waiting for the post-mortem report,'' Sing