Suicide Factory – Cut-throat competition, rising unemployment and the coaching industry

✍ Shashank

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech this year, uttered the word ‘youth’ 25 times and ‘employment/job’ 15 times, loudly proclaiming the “focus” of his government. He even asked the youth of the country to “do such work that the generation of the time in the next century will remember you”. However, just a few days after his speech, there were reports in various news outlets exposing the reality of the phrase, “focus on youth”, which not only the NDA government but also the other central and state governments in the past have kept ignoring.

According to a report by IC3(an NGO), there has been an alarming rise in student suicides with an increase of 4.2 percent between 2021 and 2022. The report even mentioned that in the past 20 years, the rate of student suicides has been increasing at a much higher pace than the overall suicides. Maharashtra came out as the state with the highest number of cases, surpassing all other regions. These figures undoubtedly place India as the “Vishwa Guru” in letting down its students and youths. We need to understand that issues like deteriorating mental health, substance abuse etc are only the symptoms of a larger problem which has made India to have one of the world’s highest youth suicide rates. The real problem lies in the capitalist system which is forcing our youth to resort to such measures. We will investigate a few systemic reasons behind this disturbing trend.

“Survival of the fittest”, with the help of a coaching institute.

Ever since the Neoliberal policies were introduced in the early 90s, all governments have continuously reduced their expenditure on education. As government spending kept on declining, with most of the population unable to afford private schools with high fees, the outcome has been the abysmal state of education in the country. The Annual Status of Education Report, 2023, showed that more than half of the teenagers surveyed struggled with basic division that is expected of Class 3-Class 4 students. Primary education being in such a poor state for most children only leads to unimaginable pressure they feel whenश  they give their 10th and 12th board examinations. The consequence is news of suicides surfacing every year when the results are out.

Most of the children coming from working class households face systemic barriers and drop out of the rat race of securing a seat in some decent government college, as private collegess are undoubtedly out of reach for them. Those who do overcome economic and social challenges must face cut-throat competition because the seats are very few. For technical degrees like engineering and medicine, which is an aspiration for only a minority of children (mostly coming from lower middle-class families or above), the situation is no different. For example, around 18 lakh students apply every year for JEE mains examination for around 60,000 seats. In this background, an entire generation of students is being conditioned to equate success with high test scores and failure in such examinations is often presented as the fault of the aspirant.

One must realize that in the name of competitive exams for admissions to colleges and in jobs, in the name of “competition”, we do not even have “selection” exams where fulfilling an objective eligibility criteria (for example a score of 80 out of 100) will ensure an admission, but we have a “filtering” system in which only the top few get a chance, as there are only few vacancies, and this system  is designed to reject students by blaming themselves for not being “talented” enough. This is shifting the burden of the blame from the shoulders of the system on to the shoulders of the students.

As “Atmanirbhar Bharat” of the Modi government fails to generate enough decent jobs with social security, the number of youths appearing for government competitive examinations have kept on increasing. Just to recall the news which made headlines in January when 50 lakh applications were received for 60,000 constable posts in Uttar Pradesh. Such high competition coupled with regular instances of paper leaks or test cancellations have caused young people who spend years in preparation to be in a continuous state of extreme stress.

The absence of enough good government schools and colleges, and the high demand for government jobs have created a commercial industry of coaching institutes and tuition classes. From primary education to preparation for government jobs, we see private coaching institutes mushrooming all around. If we consider primary education, the tuition classes cater to every class of the population. While working class and lower middle-class families send their children to group tutorial centers charging 500-1000 a month, acting as an additional burden on their household income already in distress because of inflation, the upper middle-class families prefer to have private tutors changing as high as Rs 4,000-8,000 per month. In the case of competitive examinations, the fee is in lakhs. Presently the market revenue of the coaching industry in India is Rs 58,088 crore and is projected to reach Rs 1,33,995 crore rupees by 2028. This is basically privatization of education at play and is not an anomaly but what has been intended by the neoliberal polices which all the central and state governments have followed. It also shows that to pass an examination or to do well in school, individual hard work becomes secondary; the primary is whether one can afford to buy a quality education in the market or not.

Free and equal education for all and permanent employment guarantee is the only way out

Recently, there have been multiple movies and TV shows based on the competitive examination and their preparation, like “Kota Factory”, “12th Fail”, “Aspirants” often glossing over their demerits. Although it should come as no surprise as some of them are sponsored by big traders in the coaching industry, like Unacademy. They also propagate the idea that if one works hard, then the sky is the limit for them. This is sheer treachery, as without enough opportunities hard work is useless. These ideas are nurtured by the cultural machinery of capitalism to maintain its hegemony, and keep blaming the students for its own failures. The reality is that we are losing young lives—by no fault of their own—due to this hyper-competitive atmosphere. If we could have free, equal and quality education for all, and increase the number of colleges and universities, then having “filtering” type entrance examinations would become unnecessary.

If we could have permanent employment guarantee ensured by the government, the need for such high-stake examinations for government jobs would seize to exist. But the question is, can this be expected within a profit-driven system? While we should get organized to raise these demands and force the capitalist government to implement them, we should also be aware that when capitalism is in a state of global crisis, enacting welfare policies has become impossible for any capitalist government, because implementing any such policy would impact the profit rates of the capitalist class it serves. The need of the hour is to challenge the capitalist policies in education and demand fundamental changes. Only in a socialist system which focuses on the needs of the people can these demands be fully achieved, finally bringing an end to our children and youths from taking their own lives.