After watching a heartrending account of student suicides on  TV, I decided to bring this topic in front of my FB friends too. Even though I remember writing about this topic before too.

 "Student Suicides" in both Telugu states are on the rise. Let us remember a saying "the true purpose of education is to mold the young minds, not just to make careers."  In today's cut-throat competitive world no one cares about it anymore.  It is a fact that stress induced by the present day education is driving students to end their lives. It is extremely sad to note that in a span of 15 days nearly 15 young lives, were extinguished. It seems parents are not able to discern psychological pressure on their wards in hostels at their early age. The corporate institutions are putting more burden on the children not taking into account their individual abilities. It is well-known fact that the corporatisation of education, at +2 level has ruined the entire intermediate education system by making the Arts group, endangered and is almost extinct now.

 One would normally believe that someone who qualifies to study Engineering is a bright young mind. But whether the student has the aptitude for such a course or if he had other interests is very difficult to ascertain.T here is obviously something deeper that is troubling the youth of today. Life has so many shades of grey that we are yet to decipher.In fact, the education system as such has failed to inculcate life skills. The fact of the matter is, I have read an item in which it is said that there is one psychiatrist for three lakh people, in India, and roughly about 2 crore Indians need their help. Young people may need mentors who can listen to them. In foreign countries, schools and colleges including the universities, have such mentorship programs.

 It is really shocking that many young boys and girls are resorting to suicides in colleges, and the incidence is very high in AP& TS. If we look deeply into some common issues other than financial matters, a more recurring factor is, that the students are unable to cope up with the syllabus that is being arranged by the colleges, in a time bound frame. We may not find fault sometimes, with the college management also, as many parents prefer to play safe, by putting their children in Corporate colleges, unmindful of their children's basic, IQ levels. This irresponsible act of parents also is one the reasons. The parents should note that the colleges are not miracle machines to altogether change their kids' destiny by giving unprecedented success results.

I feel to an extent even government's are to be blamed, as year after year, these incidents are on the rise. The hypocritic Governments are shedding crocodile tears when such inhuman, pitiful incidents take place and Corporate college managements are not mending their ways and means to stop this student suicides. Their entire vision is on how to attract, innocent parent community, to send their wards to their schools and colleges. Parents are also mindlessly joining their kids in such corporate schools without considering their aptitude.

Now the only solution is the implementation of a common school system, which was designed by Dr.DS Kothari. Intellectuals should strive, hard, for a common school system in entire India. We should scrap EAMCET and provide admissions to Engineering and other colleges on the basis merit only.If I'm right, Tamil Nadu follows this system and there is no necessity of reinventing a wheel. For knowing the student's aptitude a test could be conducted at the 10th class level, to assess the interest of the student in specific areas like Engineering, Medicine, Accountancy, Legal, sports etc. And last but not the least I would be happy if rank related advertising is banned in TVs and newspapers.