No undue academic pressure on students, says ILS principal

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The college has a counsellor, Nickly Lamba, but she wasn’t available for comment. Asked if Lamba had alerted her about any student with suicidal tendencies, the principal replied in the negative. “These matters are confidential and I don’t insist on knowing details of what students tell her. On the contrary, we like her to work independently. So it’s not necessary that even if she was counselling a suicidal student, she would tells us,” said Joshi.

This is not the first instance at the campus where a student has committed suicide. Last year, a first-year student had committed suicide after he was awarded zero marks in his examination.

Asked if the college has considered the possibility of academic pressures are leading to such incidents, Joshi said, “We have the same syllabus and examination pattern as other law colleges. In one semester, students have to write only four papers. I don’t think there is any extraordinary academic pressure. And we don’t have any non-academic pressures as well, besides the mandatory attendance requirement set by the varsity.”

“Whenever we admit a student, we tell the parents as well as the student about various counselling services that we have. In fact, we also have two psychiatrists in the campus who work at the Center for Mental Health Law and Policy. Unfortunately, we don’t see a lot of students taking up these counselling services. In fact, after a similar incident last year, we had pro-actively called for an outside NGO to come and counsel the students,” she said.

A condolence meeting has been arranged on Monday where college authorities will once again elaborate on the counselling facilities at the college and urge students to take them up.