Tasmina Begum, a 15-year-old from Jointapur in Sylhet, committed suicide on Monday, February 04, 2019. The resident of Telijuri village of Jaintiapur Upazila hanged herself after performing poorly in the first two exams of the ongoing Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations.
Family members claimed that Tasmina killed herself around Monday noon after faring badly in the first two exams.
Like Tasmina, other teenagers have also committed suicide over the past few years. Many of them killed themselves as they were frustrated with their lives due to pressure from teachers and parents to perform well in examinations. I would like to remind these parents and teachers that academic grades cannot determine whether a student will become successful or a failure in the future.
Thanks to most parents, teachers and the education system in the country, most young students in the schools and colleges are being taught that grades are everything. Without good grades, they will be failures. As a result, whenever they fall behind, they feel ashamed and take drastic decisions to kill themselves or hurt themselves in some way or other.
Significant initiatives need to be taken to change this mindset. First of all, the administration can change the exam-based grading system and include student counselling mechanism into the curriculum. Secondly, parents and teachers should focus more on children or students rather than their grades. Maybe there is something in his or her personal life that is acting as a distraction.
The education ministry can look at the success stories of countries like the USA, UK and others where most students enjoy learning new things at school. Similar policies can be implemented in the schools of Bangladesh as well.
Md. Ariful Islam
Department of Sociology
University of Barishal
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