Pic: Edexlive
Pic: Edexlive

'It was like a jail.' What are institutions putting students through in the race to get top ranks?

With marks being used as tools of humiliation and study hours occupying their days, the bid to crack top entrance exams is taking a heavy toll on Telangana's students

A 16-year old student died by suicide inside his classroom at Sri Chaitanya Junior College at Narsingi, Telangana on Tuesday, February 28. The student, in his suicide note, named the college Vice Principal Krishna Reddy, Acharya, and warden Naresh, and said that he was unable to bear the harassment he faced from them. 

The police have registered a case of abetment to suicide based on a complaint filed by the student's parents. The incident once again raised critical questions about the culture in colleges such as Chaitanya in Telangana, igniting long-standing debates on the pressures faced by students enrolled there. 

As per information from Sri Chaitanya's website, the group's schools and colleges have a total strength of 5,50,000 students. "My son is in his second year at Sri Chaitanya Junior College in Narayanguda. He is a day scholar. There are fifty students in his classroom, and they accommodate five students on a bench. Washrooms are inadequate, and so is the ventilation in the classrooms. Moreover, there is just a single staircase in the building, severely compromising fire safety as well," claims Dr Kiran*, a parent.

Stifling atmosphere
Sri Chaitanya is not alone in the list of popular colleges where students throng with the hope to crack entrance exams such as JEE, NEET or even EAMCET, which is the engineering entrance test in Telangana. A former student of Narayana Junior College in Nallakunta, when asked to recall his time at the institution said, "It was like a jail. We were confined there from morning 6.00 am to 8.00 pm in the evening. There was no ground, no canteen, no permission to go out. I could not take it after a year. I moved to another college," he tells Edexlive on the condition of anonymity. The student was enrolled in the college by his father in 2008 in the hopes of clearing JEE Mains. 

Harshita P, a former student of the 2017 batch at Sri Chaitanya Junior College in Bachupally also recalls her classmates sitting beside her and crying. "We were hostellers. We would have to be in class by 5.45 am, and with just a few breaks in between, study hours would go on until 10.00 pm. We did not have permission to participate in any extra-curricular activities or sports. We had tests every Saturday, and we would be shuffled around sections depending on the marks we got in these tests," she says. 

At Sri Chaitanya, these batches included the IPE batch (intermediate public exam) and the SPL batch. The IPE batch, Harshita claims, had to "mug up" content from study materials. On the other hand, the SPL batches were prepared for EAMCET and JEE Mains and consisted of students who scored high. "This division into categories took a toll on our confidence as well. People looked at you differently," she adds. Stress runs high among students, who are mere pawns in the rat race that these institutions are embroiled in. Dr Kiran claims that teachers are informed by the top management at the institution about the number of ranks that are expected from each batch, at all costs, and marks are the end-all and be-all at such institutions, according to Dr Kiran. "There is no scope for an intellectual child. They display marks on the notice boards. They announce marks in the classroom and humiliate students who score less. When everything is projected on marks, how do students go back and face their parents?" she asks. Dr Kiran states that the weekly testing mechanism causes students trauma and that she has spoken to the management about not displaying marks on notice boards, and shifting to monthly tests, but to no avail. She claims that the college said they have followed the same system for many years and have received desired ranks in the entrance tests. "I have now moved my son to online classes, and that has helped," she says. 

Discrimination based on marks?
Impositions for getting low scores were a form of punishment meted out to the students, claims Harshita, who is now working at Cognizant in Hyderabad. Apart from this, she recalls that a few junior lecturers at her college were still pursuing their open degrees whilst teaching. "The junior lecturers used to guide us during study hours. Senior lecturers were only assigned to special batches. There was no one to correct us if we were being misguided," she claims. 

While Harshita and Dr Kiran both do not recall incidents of physical assault in their experience at these institutions, verbal assault and humiliation were a common feature, they say. Low-performing students would find lecturers "ganging up" against them during parent-teacher meetings, complaining about their lackadaisical attitude towards studies. "The dean used to come on rounds daily, and verbally abuse students for scoring fewer marks," she states. 

"Teachers need to understand that the psyche of each student is different. Some are more sensitive to such scoldings. This incident, while shocking, is not surprising. How many more parents should suffer before the teachers are sensitised?" asks Dr Kiran. 

Life skills amiss
Ashish Naredi, Chairman of the Indic International School in Hyderabad, and former Executive Member of the Hyderabad Parents Association raise a critical question to the parents over their inclination to send their wards to these institutions. He opines that research needs to be conducted on alumni who have received good ranks in entrance tests from these institutions to understand what they are doing now. "These students do not have access to develop life skills while at such institutions. Education is the only way to social mobility, that is correct, but the right environment also has to be created in order for students to get decent jobs. Marks cannot be made a question of life and death," says Naredi.

Edexlive has reached out to Sri Chaitanya Junior College and Narayana Group of Institutions for a comment, and this article will be updated accordingly. 


*name changed to protect the individual's identity

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