Fear of exam leads SRM student to suicide

The student, Janani Sri Padmanaban, a first-year student of SRM University in Vadapalani took the extreme step allegedly out of fear of an upcoming mathematics examination. 

A police source said that Janani had her semester exam starting from Thursday and the BSc first year student was found hanging in her room in their house in Periyar Koil Street in Ekkaduthangal early on Thursday by her parents. 

The police who have conducted preliminary inquiries, say that the family claims Janani was weak in mathematics and was scared of the approaching examinations. The Guindy police have registered a case and conducting enquiries with family and friends. 

She is survived by her father Padmanabhan, who works for The Tamil Nadu State Apex Cooperative Bank Limited (TNSC), her mother, a home maker and her school-going younger brother. 

Speaking to DT Next, Kamala Kannan who is Janani’s cousin and lives in the same locality said this morning at around 4.30 am, the parents saw the light was still switched on in Janani’s room which was locked from inside. “They knocked the door and when it was unanswered, they peeped through the keyhole and saw her hanging,” Kamal said and added that Janani usually stayed up at night to study in a separate room and shared a room with her brother to sleep at night. 

“On Wednesday night, she did not come to her brother’s room. She was  a very hardworking student in school, however, she was bit sad and worried that her parents were paying high fees for her  college education, and was scared that she might disappoint them,” Kamal Kannan said. 

Family members said that the young girl never had a personal phone and used her parents’ phone to keep in touch with friends. “Though she was a lively girl she liked to keep to herself and preferred being left alone,” another relative said. 

The police said that the deceased had not left a suicide note and if her parents give a complaint against anyone for instigating her, they would  take the investigation forward. 

Earlier in February this year, the fear of examination drove a 19-year-old B Tech first-year student, Sunki Sandeep to commit suicide at Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh. He was found hanging to ceiling at his room. A suicide note in his pocket read he was in a state of fear to take the first-year examination. 

In another incident at Thiruvananthapuram, a first-year engineering student, Akash committed suicide allegedly due to the fear of losing a year after failing in the examination in August. A recent survey said, twothird (66 per cent) students reported that their parents pressurise them for better academic performance, and the pressure from non-graduate parents was more compared to parents those were graduates and post graduates. 

Experts say the emphasis is so much so on the better grades, that students forget the fun element in learning. Anything can be made interesting if taught well, so it’s not only the students who underperform, teachers underperform too.