Unable to cope with the stress of online classes, a 19-year-old woman student who had studied in a Tamil-medium school all her life and had just begun a BA English course, died by suicide at her house at Sangiliyandapuram in Tiruchy. Lalitha (19), whose parents run a grocery shop in the locality, enrolled her in a BA English course in a private college here. She had been attending online classes from August 25.
Police sources said that the girl had done her schooling in Tamil-medium and thus she could not understand the classes that were in English. The girl finished her schooling in the Corporation School on Keelaran Salai in March 2020. She took her life late on Sunday night and on returning home from the shop, the girl's parents found her dead. Palakarai police have filed a case and started the investigation. Was the course forced on her? According to sources, the girl herself chose the English course because her friends from school joined the same course. After attending four hours of classes online for the past ten days, she allegedly found it difficult to cope with the teaching.
The girl reportedly told her parents about the predicament she was in and her parents attempted to convince her that she would be able to understand the classes after colleges reopened. However, the girl is believed to have been worried that she might not be able to understand English given her Tamil-medium schooling. In Class XI, the girl scored 52 marks out of 100 and in Class XII, she got 70 out of 100 in English.
