As at least 50 students of corporate junior colleges committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the last two months, educationists on Sunday urged the State government to immediately intervene to clear the mess in corporate colleges.
“No college should be allowed to run beyond eight hours,” said Andhra Pradesh Private Junior College Managements (APJM) State president B.Suryanarayana Rao said briefing newsmen on resolutions adopted at the meeting attended by educationists, student organisation and opposition parties.
State-wide stir
The meeting decided to launch a State-wide stir to exert pressure on the State governments to end the rat race for marks allegedly pursued in corporate colleges which had spread their tentacles in the two Telugu States and switch over to knowledge-based education system with due focus on learning by doing.
Students were cracking up under pressure to perform as the corporate education system was meant for only sprinters, APJM district president K.V. Ramana Reddy said. The meeting demanded appointment of trained counsellors in all corporate colleges to guide students unable to cope with the system of education which prepared the students simultaneously for IIT and medical entrance exams and also Intermediate examination. The government should set up a toll free helpline for any student with suicidal urge to seek help.
Parents were equally to be blamed for the sorry state of affairs as they expected their wards to come out with flying colours in the highly competitive entrance examinations without understanding that behind every success story, there were thousands of others who fell by failed to crack the competitive exams.
“Neither the parents or the teachers understand the feeling of a student suffering from stress,” observed Prakasam Special Branch Deputy Superintendent of Police U. Nagaraj, who had probed several suicides by students in the past.
YSRC State secretary Ch. Ravi Babu, district Congress president E.Sudhakar Reddy, district BJP secretary P.Anjaneyulu, city CPI secretary U. Prakasa Rao, district SFI secretary Ch.Sudhakar, district AISF coordinator P. Kumari were among those who spoke.