Of the 49 suicides, half were by Dalit and tribal students, and a majority of them were boys. (Express photo)A week after an investigation by The Indian Express revealed that 49 students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) committed suicide between 2013-17, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Tuesday sent a notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Develoment (HRD) regarding the matter and sought a reply within six weeks. Of the 49 suicides, half were by Dalit and tribal students, and a majority of them were boys.
“All, except seven, were suicides by hanging, and the bodies were discovered either by classmates or members of the school staff. The contents of the report cannot be ignored or overlooked as this reported pattern of suicides by so many students in JNVs might still increase, if not checked in time with appropriate measures,” the NHRC statement said.
The NHRC also expressed concern regarding the proportion of suicides from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. The commission has sought information on whether trained counsellors were available on campuses to whom adolescent students can open up and talk about their feelings.
Information has also been sought on whether dedicated staff are employed to ensure that children are not left alone in rooms and whether emergency assistance through telephone counselling and suicide hotline services were available to them.
“If trained counsellors are available, behavioural changes, suicidal tendencies and depression among the students can be spotted in time and with the guidance and counselling of counsellors, suicides can be controlled,” the NHRC statement said.
Known for producing the best results in board examinations, the JNVs, which were started in 1985-86, have become a gateway out of poverty for thousands of underprivileged children. Since 2012, these schools have consistently recorded a pass percentage of over 99 per cent in Class 10 and over 95 per cent in Class 12, which is far better than private schools and CBSE’s national average.
Currently, there are 635 JNVs with 2.8 lakh students. As on March 31, 2017, a total of 2.53 lakh students in the age group of nine to 19 were enrolled across roughly 600 JNVs. That same year, the number of suicides touched 14. Hence, the suicide rate — suicides per population of 1,00,000 — at JNVs for 2017 works out to 5.5.
In other words, for every one lakh students studying in these schools, almost six students committed suicide in 2017. This is slightly higher than the national suicide rate for a similar age group in 2015 — roughly 3 suicides per lakh population aged 6 to 17 years.
