In recent years, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of suicides and suicide attempts in Bangladesh. I am particularly concerned that a big percentage of suicide cases are in the younger population.
Many students are committing suicide in Bangladesh, and many more are chronically suffering from depression. One of two things may have happened: Either there is an overall increase in number and intensity, or newspapers are covering more of these cases nowadays. We do not have any research to understand the demographic overall background.
We see news, we make some sad comments, and then we move on. Our collective memory span in this internet era is very short. Also, our overall understanding of mental health is shallow enough that we say -- “Oh I also had this issue, never thought of dying! Kids these days!”
First and most importantly, let's try to understand and accept the crisis. What are we doing to prevent high depression rates in youngsters? How long do we keep seeing our kids jumping from rooftops or hanging themselves from ceiling fans?
Being an educator and social science researcher, and also being somebody who grew up in Dhaka in a very toxic educational environment, I believe many of these things would not happen if we strongly commit ourselves to improving the culture in our educational institutions.
In this article, I intend to show some possible policy improvements that I believe will help us reduce depression in students. My purpose is to point out some of the systematic barriers that prevent students from opening themselves up to family, mentors, and friends.
First, our education system rarely respects students' right to their personal information. It is not even clear in our country what students' private information is. I will present some cases where I think students' rights have been violated, then I will talk about the current situation in advanced countries, and last, I will propose how I think this problem can be solved.
I was an undergraduate student in Bangladesh; I was in Dhaka University. There were a couple of very unprofessional and unempathetic rules at that time. First, students' results will be published on the public wall. Yes, the full result sheet will directly be posted on a bulletin board.
Many times I did not even need to look at the board to know about my result; other people just let me know. Everybody can see and mock each other for the result -- zero empathy for such a sensitive situation!
A big mental shock for students is to be bullied by their classmates and professors after results. The system behaves in a way that these results are death sentences after some unimaginable criminal activities.
Second, faculties will gossip with their “favourite” students about “other students.” They will try to gather information about students in their offices. Being a faculty in a university in the US, I cannot even think about this as a possibility. If any of the faculty here does something even remotely close to this, they will be suspended from the job.
On the other hand, many university faculties in Bangladesh consider their students as a threat. This is particularly true for academically unsuccessful faculties who envy students. They try their best to prevent students from achieving academic excellence.
Third, faculties decide many things on students together as a club -- very similar to a business cartel. Will a student be granted scholarships? Will a student be a teacher in the department? This cartel effect destroys many careers. I have seen cases where some students have suffered to make way for one or two of these “favourite” and “powerful” students.
How come our undergraduate students systematically learn this much corruption from their professors? What do we do to stop them?
Fourth, students will be asked many personal questions about their family income, economic situation, relationship status, etc. University faculties will least respect professional boundaries.
Now that we got a picture of the toxicity that our educational institutions have, let us talk about some ways to remove it. There are three main reasons behind academic toxicity in Bangladesh, which I think can be stopped with certain changes in policies and structure.
Information rights
Right to personal information needs to be recognized. If a student does not allow it, their results or any other personal information should not be shared with anybody. The academic result is personal information, and making it public should be considered unacceptable.
Professional boundaries
Faculties and staff in our university system need to learn professional boundaries. We can prohibit many of these unbearable situations by creating regulations and by specific training. The training will include videos, audio, books, and potential situations to teach what not to say, how to behave, and how to be inclusive in teaching and mentoring. These should particularly talk about gender biases and racial or regional discrimination.
Mental health support centre
Faculties and students all need to have access to community support and access to professional counselors. Universities need to provide infrastructure and facilities that will support any student who may need extra support from a third party to renegotiate with faculties too.
The question becomes, with our political system, is all of this even possible? Changing Bangladeshi academic culture overnight is not possible, and also not my target.
However, boosting healthy competition and collaboration among students and faculties should not be unreachable. Some small twists in the system should be a good start. We just need to be serious and commit to making a difference.
Aparna Howlader is Assistant Professor of Economics, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, USA.
