Alarming suicide rate at public universities

In an alarming development reported by The Daily Star on Wednesday, the suicide rate at public universities has shown a dramatic upward trend, with a reported case of 19 deaths in five universities last year. This is over three times as high as the 2017 rate—a growth trend that bears disturbing similarities to the national suicide figure. The question is, why are a growing number of students succumbing to self-destructive temptations? Clearly, there is still a tendency to undermine mental health. The rise in suicides among students, while a national health issue, goes to show how unprepared public universities are in dealing with such incidents.

Most of the public universities in the country have mental healthcare cells but few are effective. For students, however, besides the well-known reasons for suicide including academic stress, often a suicidal tendency may emanate from feelings of helplessness resulting from how they think they were treated by their teachers and university officials. Some recent cases have proved this although the authorities are still in denial. We need to understand that addressing an issue as complicated as suicide requires an open mind and a comprehensive approach which will require universities to not only invest heavily in mental health, to ensure proper and timely counselling for the vulnerable students, but also address hitherto-unaddressed factors such as how students in general are dealt with. This is also true for other academic institutions, public or private, which should have the same approach to mental health issues.

More importantly, as part of its national suicide prevention mechanisms, the government should devise policies that will make it imperative for all universities, colleges and schools to give mental health its due importance.