Bizarre step: Ceiling fans removed from students' room to curb suicides

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• Dec 16, 2021 | moderator

Bengaluru: In order to help any student cope with mental issues, pressure, mental wellness, suicides etc, what would be the apt step taken by the varsity or college administration? Speak to the student, help him or her open up with his/her inner fears etc right? Well, an educational institution has removed fans from the students' rooms in order to curb suicide. Yeah, you heard it right.

This bizarre step has been taken by one of the most premier educational institution of the country, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru. The institution has ordered to remove all ceiling fans from every students' room and has installed a wall-mounted fan instead.

As weird it may sound, the step has been taken and already fans have been removed.

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Four students had committed suicide in the IISc campus this year, two in 2020. In an internal letter, the management has indicated that all rooms will have it ‘covered’ in the next 15 days. The work of ceiling fan removal began from the U block this week, said a student.

An issue so sensitive, that instead of addressing the matter in a more contingent yet at a personal front with any student facing such mental health issues or even speaking with the students, engaging them in some healthy exercises, the institution instead removed the fans to curb suicides.

Apparently, a poll was also conducted internally in which as many as 88 per cent of students said they did not think replacing ceiling fans with wall-mounted ones in all IISc hostels would help in avoiding suicides. Also, 90 percent of them did not want this replacement of fans altogether. A meager 6 per cent of students said they did not care about any of these changes.

The order to remove the fans from the rooms, have triggered mass opposition as well as condemnation on social media. On the contrary, the institution has a wellness center which is supposed to help students cope with pressure. A student from the campus has quipped that the wellness centre is a farce and no help has been proven from this.