Around 6,000 students committed suicide in 2006

In 2006, 5,857 students — or 16 a day — committed suicide across India due to exam stress. And these are just the official figures.

Shimla superintendent of police (crime), Punita Bhardwaj, said incidents of children committing suicide because of examination stress often did not get reported as traumatized parents wanted to keep the issue under wraps.

Anita Naresh, a 16-year-old from Kanpur who swallowed dye last week as she felt she had not done well in her Class X exams, is one of them. Her condition is still critical. A teenager from Chandigarh attempted suicide inside the examination centre but was taken to hospital just in time. Bangalore has witnessed a series of attempted suicides by students denied a hall ticket for a board examination owing to poor attendance.

According to Kolkata psychiatrist Debashish Roy, scores of youngsters seek counselling before and after the exam season and have to be put on medication.

It's not just board exams that get stress levels soaring in students. Entrance tests to professional courses that require extra coaching also have the same effect. St Joseph's Convent, Patna, teacher Shweta Priyadarshini put it best when she said: "Most students face two kinds of pressure: one due to the board examinations and the other due to competitive exams."

Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Chennai, class XII student Athreya Mukundsubramanian said he would not have any time to relax after the board examination as he would have to prepare for a series of competitive exams, including the All-India Pre-Medical and Pre-Dental papers and the IIT-JEE.

"I wish I could just fast-forward the next two months," his mother, Gayathri, said. "Why on earth can't the syllabus for entrance tests also be incorporated in the regular college syllabus so that students don't require additional coaching?" Shetty asked.

It is the combination of entrance tests and board exams that some students are finding it

difficult to handle. "The examination system itself should be hanged!" That's the passionate cry from Amritsar lawyer B K Joshi. His relative, Amritsar Engineering College student Kanika Sharma died after consuming poison when she failed in mathematics.

Students have often held their teachers solely responsible for suicide. "I will come back as a ghost and harass
my teacher," the suicide note left behind by a student from a prestigious Bangalore school said.

Some students have discovered other mechanisms to deal with the pressure, like running away from home or simply refusing to appear for exams. Two boys from a school in Ahmedabad walked out of their class X board exams for fear of failure. Three students, in three separate incidents in Chandigarh, ran away from home for fear of exams.