The death of a 20-year-old female student at the BITS Pilani Goa campus on Monday comes as a telling blow to the education fraternity and exposes serious gaps in mental health management in the State’s higher education setup. This is the sixth student death in just over a year, and it raises critical questions about the effectiveness of student safeguards, mental health support systems and accountability.
The death of Vaishnavi, a third-year Electronics and Communication Engineering student from Bengaluru, echoes the silent scream of countless young lives lost prematurely, and the many more that are silently fighting their inner battles. Where could the fault lines be? BITS is believed to have mental health policies, helplines, and even a 24×7 online counselling facility on campus, in line with the Supreme Court guidelines.
The reasons for death may be many. Students have died by suicide, drug abuse, foul play, over-medication and in some cases, unknown reasons. A random assessment of all the cases suggests that students were under study pressure. That being said, the two areas of focus right now are whether mental health remedies reach students in need, and whether students are falling victim to a culture of their own that is often used as an outlet to escape academic pressures. What is it that causes such a situation at BITS?
Reports indicate that Vaishnavi was undergoing treatment for depression and receiving counselling from Bengaluru. The BITS campus is believed to have a round-the-clock counselling facility. So, what went wrong? Did the institution’s ecosystem fail to detect her mental state? Or did the health services fail to reach her in time? There are clear indications that the internal systems are unable to address issues in totality.
The institute may have all the facilities to tackle pressure, but the biggest challenge for any college of such a stature is to reach the vulnerable students. There is a certain stigma attached to mental health interventions in Goa, and students of the current age refrain from availing themselves of the facilities. The relentless pursuit of academic excellence or merely competing in such a setup creates a high-pressure environment which students find difficult to negotiate. Students succumb to such pressures.
Unless there is a water-tight system to scan students and have mental conditioning camps consistently, the Supreme Court’s directives will remain on paper or the notice boards of institutes. Students will continue to fall prey to high-intensity or high-competency learning. While it is necessary to scale down the academic pressure points, there is also a need to revisit protocols on mental health and student well-being.
The BITS Goa campus may be beyond the scope of the government in terms of academic handling, but the State cannot be a mute spectator to such tragedies. Administrative accountability must be fixed. The government must institute an independent inquiry into the deaths, examine the protocols and mental health mechanisms, including early detection, and probe whether the remedies are reaching students. There has to be a comprehensive audit assessing each of these areas.
The loss of Vaishnavi is another grim reminder that institutes are failing on newer challenges. No academic achievement can justify overlooking the mental health crisis; it defeats the very purpose of excellence. We cannot allow young lives to fall prey at the altar of systemic neglect. The government and all educational institutes must prioritise the mental well-being of students as a core pillar of institutional excellence. It’s time all stakeholders reflect critically on this ugly side of the education system.
