In recent years, student suicides and suicide attempts within educational institutions have forced an uncomfortable reckoning. These are not isolated tragedies or individual failures. They are symptoms of a system that places relentless pressure on young people while offering them little emotional support in return. University regulations, rigid grading, financial stress and soaring parental expectations are steadily pushing students towards burnout. Crucially, this pressure does not begin at university. It starts much earlier and quietly hardens over time.

From the first years of schooling, many children are expected to excel in everything. When they struggle, they are compared with classmates, relatives or cousins, often without any regard for their individual abilities or emotional needs. These constant comparisons chip away at self-worth and normalise fear, silence and anxiety rather than curiosity and learning. By the time students reach higher education, many are already conditioned to believe that failure is shameful and success is never enough. In Pakistan, education has increasingly become a symbol of social status. Parents feel compelled to copy one another’s choices, enrolling children in certain schools or systems regardless of cost, aptitude or mental strain. This race for appearances exposes the deep flaws of an education system that rewards competition while neglecting well-being.

Pak Armed Forces fully capable to counter any misadventure: Asif ........

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