Tech univs, engg colleges in UP to assist students to ward off depression, suicidal tendencies

From the current academic session, all technical universities and its constituent private engineering colleges of Uttar Pradesh will utilize psychologists and counsellors who will assist their students in warding off depression and any suicidal tendency which generally seize today's youth either due to sheer academic pressure or emotional burst.

There are three state technical universities in the state. AKTU at Lucknow, Harcourt Butler Technical University (HBTU) at Kanpur (autonomous in character) and Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Gorakhpur. Apart from them, there are 800 private institutions affiliated to AKTU along with 15 odd government engineering colleges.

Last year, in October, a final year B Tech student at Government Engineering College in Kannauj took his own life in his hostel room. This is not isolated. IIT Kanpur, for example, has seen a series of such incidents.

Other chief secretary (technical education) Narendra Bhushan here on Friday issued a Whatsapp group message to vice chancellors and principals of engineering and polytechnic institutions asking how to solve the issue in their respective institutions. Bhushan refreshed their memories with the Kannuaj incident and asked VCs and institute heads to conduct some sort of brainstorming session and propose how they plan to do it.

We have to solve the issue at the very beginning of the new academic year. A lot of our students belong to rural pockets who might not be so familiar with English. And chances are that they will not feel comfortable dealing with the new atmosphere. Taking all these into account, I have requested the vice chancellors to resolve the problem in their own institutions," Bhushan said.

Confirming the move, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) vice chancellor Prof JP Pandey added, "Yes, we have received one message from the ACS. It is a welcome step. Soon we will issue detailed guidelines or advisory to all the colleges on how they can help students get past such difficulties. Mentor mentee programmes will be implemented and teachers will keep monitoring students closely and watch their behavior.". If they notice any unusual thing, such students will be brought in front of a psychologist or a counsellor for consecutive sessions until they get back to normal.

"Early intervention is the key to suicide prevention. It is essential that people realize, particularly with increasing reports of suicides among youths nowadays, that it is insufficient to attribute suicide deaths to merely depression," added the VC.