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DREAMS DIE YOUNG

Increasing suicides by school children failing in Class X and XII examinations ring an alarm in Madhya Pradesh. But is the Government listening, asks India Today's Neeraj Mishra.

Javed was 21, unemployed, brother of five sisters with a retired bus driver for a father. He had little hope of holding a regular job without at least a higher secondary qualification. He failed on his third attempt, then quietly swallowed pesticide tablets unburdening his responsibilities on his aging father.

In Indore, Aditi Jeena was a boisterous girl of 18 with a middle-class upbringing and working parents. On the day of her Class XII results, she fed her enrollment number into the mobile and was informed that she had flunked. She went into a depression and hours later, her parents discovered her lifeless body.

Unfortunately there have been close to a dozen such cases in the state after Class X and XII results were declared this year. Young boys and girls who could not take a decision about which subjects to choose and what books to refer to made passionate decisions about their own lives. Yogesh Tiwari and Ajay Sharma from Bhopal, Nitin Singh in Datia, Kamlesh in Damoh, Neetu Shrivastava, Satyam Agarwal and Shyam Vishvakarma in Katni have all succumbed to the overwhelming emotion of failure. There are another half a dozen who attempted suicides but to the relief of their families have survived.

The results themselves have been depressing raising question marks over the schooling system in the state. Despite claiming a 20 per cent rise in literacy rates over the past 10 years-from 44 per cent to 64 per cent-the state has a dismal schooling record. Only 60 per cent of the total examinees cleared the final hurdle in Class XII and the Class X results were a dismal 29.69 per cent. Doubts are inescapable about the kind of education being imparted in the state where 70 per cent students don't ever reach the stage where they can finish school.

The irony is that the state Government which had been so vocal about the power shortage during mid-term when Digvijay Singh was in the saddle has so far taken no note of the spate of suicides. In fact, some of its leaders went so far as to claim credit for the Class XII results asserting that they had been a direct result of continuous power supply by the Uma Bharti Government during exam days. "I think there were lesser number of casualities in the Mandal agitation than on the two days that results have been announced in the state and no minister has even bothered to visit a victim's home,'' says PCC President Subhash Yadav. He wants an inquiry into why some regions have done so dismally and if the process of scrutiny of answer sheets has been above board.

There are no easy answers as to why such young children commit suicide. What difference will it make if one is unable to obtain one silly certificate in one's life time? Is it not miniscule compared to the several dozen sterner tests that life will put you through?

These children are not even in the race for the top, they are just itching to get past the post. What motivates them to suicide when they appear unmotivated for studies? "Parents are responsible for the upbringing and should be able to second guess the impact a bad result will have on their child. Most of the suicide-prone children are already quiet, shy and depressive,'' says pshychologist Anita Singh.

"With both parents working and in some cases unemployed, it becomes very difficult for them to rise above the daily battle. We also tend to put extra pressure on our children to succeed,'' says Anjali, a single parent living in a joint family. Then there is peer pressure. It's all very well to play games and have fun together but the sinking feeling of being judged by a peer on failure is too much for a young mind. The overwhelming shame sparks a madness. As in the case of Aditi who had actually passed but had been misinformed by the phone company.

"Teachers are also responsible for heightening the sense of insecurity in complex children. Most teachers in the state are so underpaid and overworked that they would not bother to look beyond their immediate duties forgetting that social health of a child is as important,'' says Veena Puri, a teacher at a private school. Most teachers also hold the system responsible. Inordinate number of holidays, badly structured courses, under-qualified, disinterested colleagues, a tendency to ignore the smaller towns and villages, insufficient funds for development of schools, limited monitoring. The list is endless.

There have been attempts to experiment with the education system. Notably at the primary level by the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission and an NGO Eklavya. But while these have added to the literacy count, the middle and the higher school levels have remained unsurpassable for the students. The state secondary board which reaches the highest number of schools and students-around five lakh-appears unable to handle the challenge. It is of course handicapped by the rotten standards that hang like plague around the 10,000-odd government schools.

Most private schools are also moving away from the MPHSB exam and teaching pattern, adopting the more relevant CBSE and ICSE patterns. When it comes to entrance to colleges, the MPHSC certificate is of no help outside the state. More than 700 quality private schools have been started in the state in the past couple of years alone by private investors and they have all opted for CBSE. One benefit has been the rise in salaries of teachers in private institutions leading to a consequent rise in standards all around. No wonder private schools have done better and the only case of suicide reported from one of them-Aditi who studied at SICA in Indore-was actually a result of misinformation.

Uma Bharti will either have to overhaul the system or follow the private schools. The sooner the better.

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