A graduation cap in one hand, a coffin lid in the other

Why are our children tying off their futures with ropes, bedsheets and scarves around their throats? Why are our children choosing coffins over classrooms? And how dare we call ourselves protectors when we sharpen the knives they fall on and call it encouragement?

I am sorry to say this, but this is not the mission and vision of education. It never was! Yes, read that again. Education was never meant to be a living hell or a burial plot. Our pioneers did not introduce education so that students would start killing themselves. Our leaders did not fight to build educational institutions so that students could hang themselves in their bedrooms. Classrooms were meant to open minds, not close lives. Education was meant to awaken young intellects, to stimulate curiosity, to give children the wisdom to build their lives and serve humanity. It was never meant to place a gun to their heads, to choke the life out of them, or to put them in a suffocation box until they burst.

Think about it. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan dedicated his life to spreading knowledge among the youth. His vision was of an educated, confident and thoughtful generation, capable of discerning right from wrong, making sound judgments and uplifting their communities. Did he imagine students would write suicide notes on notebook paper meant for homework? Did he imagine students so panicked, so unloved and so abandoned that some would see death as the only hiding place? Absolutely not.

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah also envisioned education as a way to empower youth, to build men and women of integrity, capability and future leaders who could revolutionise the nation. He wanted children to dream freely, to explore ideas and to embrace learning without fear. Was his vision meant to trap students under the mountainous weight of pressure, ridicule and impossible expectations? No.

Allama Iqbal, our philosopher-poet, spoke of awakening the self, of encouraging youth to rise with bravery, originality and conviction. He wanted learning to set young minds free, not put them in coffins. He envisioned thinkers, not victims. But behold at what we have wrought. Children are swallowing bottles of pills behind locked hostel doors. They are stepping onto subway tracks with backpacks still on. They are jumping from apartment windows because the pressure finally won. They are leaving notes that name us – the parents, the teachers, the system – as the reason. This is murder by another name.

This is why counselling rooms are not optional. They are as necessary as classroom lectures – perhaps more so. They are a way to honour the vision of these great leaders and to bring education back to its true purpose. If Sir Syed, Quaid-e-Azam and Iqbal could see students committing suicide because of the very institutions meant to empower their dreams, would they not be horrified? Would they not demand immediate intervention and professional help?

And yet, what is our contribution to their mental health? Shouting at children for low grades. Teachers screaming their lungs out and humiliating them in classrooms. Parents forcing them into subjects they hate because it "sounds respectable". Aunts and uncles comparing them to cousins, siblings and toppers. The whole village turning report cards into cluster bombs.

Then, when a child breaks, we act shocked.

When a teacher publicly shames a child, they are teaching that child that they deserve shame. When a parent says "you will be a CSS officer" and never asks "what is your heart telling you?" they are teaching that child their happiness, individuality and identity are all irrelevant. When a school posts rankings and only the top matter, they are teaching the rest that they are worthless.

So tell me, is this what education was supposed to be? A diploma in one hand and a razor blade in the other? Because that is what parents are finding in bedrooms. That is what schools are hiding in reports. And that is what we are terrified to acknowledge at conferences.