Suicides

There is an increasing incidence of suicides in our country. Youngsters as young as 16 years old commit suicides over petty things like unable to score good percentage in exams. Parents are largely responsible for such acts committed by their children.They somehow give an impression to their sons and daughters that success or failure in life depends on exam percentage. It is this belief in them that drives them to take extreme steps. More than the children, it is the parents who need proper counselling. If their children fail to score in exam, it does not mean everything is finished. Let me give you my example. I was top scorer in school getting first rank throughout. I know many of my colleagues who were ordinary students in those days. They are today far more successful than me . Some of them are big industrialists. In the professional life also, choosing the right career is the key to success. God has made every individual unique in qualities. What a parent should do is to identify the quality his child possesses and then nurture those qualities in him. Contrary to this, every parents wants his child to become an engineer, or doctor or MBA etc. A child can excel in those areas in which he has interest and in which he has requisite qualities. There are professional counsellors who can help identify qualities in a child. Sachin Tendulkar did not have to go to college and get MBA degree. Had his parents forced him to do that, he would not have become as famous as he is today. I am sure there are many students who have potential to be great football player, Boxer, painter,musician etc but they are busy doing academics under parental and peer pressure. Such students cannot excel in their profession. Albert Einstein was the school dropout but he proved himself to be the greatest scientist the world has ever produced. Our education system is faulty, outdated. It cannot examine the potential of a child at 360 degree angle. Our examination system at best can test the memory and logical thinking of a person which is only a small fraction of the total capability of a person. That means, even if a student does not score high in the exam, that does not mean he is in any way inferior to those who have scored high percentage. There is no need to feel dejected, depressed at all. What is most worrying is that some parents always compare their children’s performance with others to judge how good or bad they are with the result they exert undue pressure on their children to excel in exam. This mindset is most prevalent in middle class families where education is the only option left to build the career. The child is under constant fear of not being able to live up to the expectation of his parents. If for any reason, he fails to score, he takes the drastic step of committing suicides. Our society and to some extent the government is responsible for increasing number of suicides among students in the country. The thinking of parents need to change and percentage system should be scrapped which is the sole criteria of judging a student’s performance.