Student suicides are rising and are the fifth-largest occupational category in national suicide statistics

National

The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 14,488 student suicides in 2024 — 8.5% of all suicides nationally, 4.3% above the previous year, continuing a rise documented over a decade. Students are the fifth-largest occupational category among suicide victims. NCRB has separately attributed thousands of deaths specifically to examination failure. This is among the best-evidenced problems in the domain: official government crime statistics, corroborated in the peer-reviewed psychiatric literature, with an active state legislative response. Evidence confidence: High.

1 sub-problem within this

Competitive-examination coaching concentrates the problem in specific hubs, and regulation of coaching centres is new and untested
Coaching for medical and engineering entrance examinations concentrates student deaths in specific hubs, most prominently Kota in Rajasthan, which recorded 26 student suicides in 2023, 17 in 2024 and 14 by mid-2025. A study found over 85% of students there spending six to seven hours a day in coaching classes. Rajasthan's Coaching Centers (Control and Regulation) Bill, 2025 is a real legislative response, but the peer-reviewed assessment of it notes that effective implementation depends on enforcement mechanisms that are not yet demonstrated. Evidence confidence: High for the pattern and the legislation; the effectiveness of the response is untested and should not be assumed.

Who is responsible

National Crime Records Bureau · Constitutional or statutory institutionOfficial statistics
State Education Departments and Examination Boards · State GovernmentExamination design and result communication
Ministry of Education · Ministry or DepartmentStudent mental-health policy
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare · Ministry or DepartmentTele-MANAS

Evidence and sources

National Crime Records Bureau — Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, 2024 · Official data or dataset14,488 student suicides; 8.5% of all suicides.
Psychiatric interventions and suicide prevention in India's coaching centres — Indian Journal of Psychiatry, December 2025 · Research paper or studyPeer-reviewed analysis citing NCRB primary data.

Alongside this

School-age children are largely absent from national nutritional surveillance
India's flagship nutrition survey, NFHS, measures children under five. Adolescent surveys pick up again later. School-age children between roughly five and eighteen — the population the school system actually serves and feeds — fall between the two, and peer-reviewed research has identified this explicitly as a data gap it was designed to fill. National nutrition policy is therefore informed disproportionately by under-five data. Evidence confidence: Medium-High — the gap is stated explicitly as the rationale of a peer-reviewed study; the specific district findings of that study should not be generalised nationally.

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1 sub-problem within this

Competitive-examination coaching concentrates the problem in specific hubs, and regulation of coaching centres is new and untested

Who is responsible

Evidence and sources

Alongside this

School-age children are largely absent from national nutritional surveillance