The New Nation - Internet Edition

The suicide of yet another Dhaka University student - Sandhya Rani Sarker - at her Rokeya Hall room has created concern among guardians about the grooming and safety of their wards at the dormitories of the highest seat of learning in the country.

A fourth year student of the Institute of Education and Research (IER) Sandhya Rani Sarker committed suicide on Tuesday by hanging herself from a ceiling fan inside her room.

Though the hall authorities are yet to find out the cause leading the incident, they assumed, following talks with her roommates, that Sandhya ended her life due to mental problems created by conflicts of relationship with other members of her family. Police are investigating the unnatural death case, and hopefully its cause would be unveiled.

A random investigation made by the New Nation has revealed that the tendency to commit suicide is on the increase at DU dormitories at an alarming rate mainly due to mental stress despite counselling by renowned psychologists. The propensity to self-annihilation is particularly strong among female students. A total of 10 students of different halls of the university-eight of them females-committed suicide during the last five years because of psychological pressure, especially failure in love.

Guardians cannot but feel concerned about the safety of their wards in the university dormitories. But does not this create any alarm in the minds of those at the helm of affairs of the university?

Suggestions have been offered from time to time for the introduction of campus police to look after peace and discipline inside universities. But no firm initiative has so far been taken from any university for this.

Dhaka University has a student-guidance and counselling office at the Teacher-Students Centre (TSC) set up in the mid-sixties of the last century. Guidance and counselling functions have so far remained restricted there. One single centre again cannot cater the needs of nearly 30,000 students. Against this backdrop some experts have suggested decentralisation of this counselling function to the residential halls.

The university administration should do what is needed to address the problem. The autonomy that the university enjoys is not just to cushion the teachers from outside interference, but also out of an understanding that they would do whatever is needed to be done to ensure proper grooming of the students for which guardians repose their trust in them. The autonomy is not for misuse or escaping responsibility.