New Delhi: To tackle an uptick in college student suicides, the Supreme Court has come out with guidelines to build a robust institutionalised response for ensuring the mental well-being of students in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs).
On Thursday, a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan took note of the gravity of the situation and said campus-based efforts in the country are fragmented and under-evaluated.
In March last year, the court had directed measures like the mandatory registration of an FIR in the event of a suicide on campus, as well as the setting up of a national task force to address students’ mental health concerns.
“Youth and young adulthood are increasingly recognised as vulnerable phases, with most mental health conditions emerging before the age of 24. The 2022 National Suicide Prevention Strategy also identifies the youth and students as priority groups while recommending multi-sectoral interventions. However, in such multi-sectoral interventions, it is found that academic campus-based efforts in India are fragmented and under-evaluated,” the bench said Thursday.
Invoking its power to do absolute justice, the Supreme Court also issued guidelines. Firstly, the court said that the Sample Registration System data on suicides, especially those falling within the age group of 15-29 years, must be centrally maintained for better and more accurate estimates of suicides in HEIs. The mechanisms for obtaining and maintaining this data may be developed with the help of experts in the field of public health and demography.
Secondly, the National Crime Records Bureau, in its annual report, must distinguish between school-going students and students of higher education in its categorisation of “student suicides”.
Thirdly, all HEIs must report any incident of suicide or unnatural death of a student, regardless of the location of its occurrence (i.e. on campus, hostels, PG accommodations, or outside the institutional premises), to the police as soon as they come to know of the incident. “This should cover all students, irrespective of whether they are studying in the classroom, distance or online mode of learning,” the court emphasised.
The bench also said that an annual report of student suicides or even unnatural deaths must also be submitted to the University Grants Commission and all other relevant regulatory bodies for professional courses like the Bar Council of India (BCI) in case of law schools or the National Medical Commission (NMC) for medical students.
In case of central universities and Institutes of National Importance like NLUs or IIMs, the annual report must be submitted to the Department of Higher Education.
Every residential institute must have access to qualified medical help round the clock, if not on campus, then within a 1 km radius to provide emergency support to students, the court also said, while adding that faculty shortages must also be catered to.
“Faculty shortages which have been reported in several HEIs, both public and private, it must be ensured that all vacant faculty positions (both teaching and non-teaching) be filled within a period of four months, with priority given to posts reserved for candidates from marginalised and underrepresented communities including those posts reserved for PwDs,” the court said.
For accountability, the court directed all HEIs to report on an annual basis to the central and relevant state governments, about how many reserved posts are vacant, how many are filled, reasons for non-filing and time taken so that periodic accountability is ensured.
The backlog of any and all pending scholarship disbursements must be cleared within a period of four months by the relevant central and state government authorities, the court ordered.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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