What exactly is happening to our children inside the walls of our schools? Addressing The Growing Mental Health Challenges in Young Students by DR.FIAZ MAQBOOL FAZILI
Dr.Fiaz Maqbool Fazili
The devastating news from Delhi of a teenager ending his life after allegedly facing harassment at school has once again shaken the nation’s conscience. It is not an isolated tragedy. Some time ago, a school-going child in Kashmir died by suicide under similarly distressing circumstances. These tragic stories surface every few months, each one more heartbreaking than the last, each one a reminder that behind the glittering façade of “modern education,” our schools are silently failing the very children they are meant to protect. The question that must now be asked with urgency is simple yet profound: What exactly is happening to our children inside the walls of our schools?
We may blame society, technology, peer pressure, parental expectations, or the education system, but the truth is that all of these forces are shaping an environment that has become increasingly hostile for the emotional and mental well-being of our students. Today’s young people are living in an age of unprecedented pressure—expected to excel, compete, impress, achieve, perform, percentile and constantly prove their worth. Childhood, once a period of innocence, exploration, and moderate freedom, has been replaced by a relentless race driven by competition, digital exposure, and a distorted notion of success.
The school, which should serve as a sanctuary for learning and wholesome growth, is gradually morphing into a battlefield of expectations. Teachers are overburdened, parents are anxious, administrators are obsessed with results and branding, and students are left crushed between all these competing demands. In the Delhi case, the student’s allegation points toward harassment, a word that has become alarmingly common in our educational landscape. Whether it is bullying by peers, humiliation in classrooms, or the cold, mechanical attitude of some institutions, children today are surrounded by pressures that adults often dismiss as “normal” or “a part of growing up.”
But these incidents show that what adults trivialise can destroy a child.
We also cannot ignore that we are raising a generation deeply entangled in the digital world. Social media has become a parallel school—one without teachers, without accountability, without filters, without mercy. Children measure their worth by likes ,followers, reels, and online validation. They compare themselves not just to classmates but to a global feed of curated perfection. A child who feels inadequate online is far more likely to feel inadequate offline as well. The digital marketplace has transformed education into content, children into consumers, and mental health into collateral damage.
On the other hand, the business of education—hi fi tuition centres, coaching classes, test-prep industries, smart-school branding, and the worldwide obsession with being “meritorious”—has created an ecosystem where students are trained to become machines of performance. A child who scores 95% is told to aim for 98%. A child who excels in art is discouraged because art does not secure a “successful career.” A child who wants to pause, breathe, or explore is labelled “lazy” or “unfocused.” Somewhere along the way, we forgot that children are not robots who can be programmed for excellence. They are emotional beings, vulnerable, impressionable, subject to intense inner conflicts that the adult world often refuses to recognise.
Kashmir, too, has not remained untouched by this crisis. The suicide of a schoolboy some time ago created ripples of sorrow but little societal introspection. In a conflict-exposed region, where children already grapple with instability, stress, and emotional burden, schools should function as healing spaces. Instead, in many cases, they add another layer of anxiety. The pressure to compete, to keep up with the digitally advanced world, and to secure a future in an uncertain environment becomes too heavy for some to carry. The result is moments of desperation—and sometimes irreversible choices.
The silence around student mental health is deafening. Parents rarely speak openly. Schools fear reputational damage. Teachers feel unsupported. Children feel misunderstood. And society largely blames the victim, the family, or the system—without addressing the deeper cultural crisis that lies at the intersection of education, ambition, technology, and emotional neglect.
To understand what is happening, we must acknowledge a fundamental truth: our current educational culture is emotionally unsustainable. “We emphasise discipline but ignore empathy. We promote achievement but neglect resilience. We praise competition but erase compassion. We prioritise marks but overlook mental well-being, “says Prof Wani, a noted educationist.
Schools today invest in buildings, gadgets, smart boards, CCTV cameras,AI education and marketing brochures—but how many invest in trained counsellors, emotional literacy programs, safe reporting mechanisms, or teacher sensitisation workshops? How many schools train educators to identify early signs of distress—withdrawal, anxiety, fear, exhaustion, emotional numbness, or behavioural change? How many schools provide safe spaces for children to express their fears without judgement? Very few. The result is a generation suffering silently, often right in front of us.
Parents, too, must introspect. Parental love has increasingly been replaced with parental anxiety. Many parents unknowingly transfer their unfulfilled dreams, fears, frustrations, and societal pressures onto their children. They enforce an unrealistic expectation of perfection, mistaking it for motivation. Their love becomes conditional, linked to performance. Their pride becomes dependent on academic output. Many do not realise how deeply these expectations hurt, how profoundly they shape a child’s self-worth, and how silently they push a sensitive child toward despair.
The Delhi boy’s death is a tragedy, but it is also a warning—an SOS in its truest sense. We cannot afford to dismiss it as an isolated incident. It is a signal that our systems have failed, our schools have faltered, and our society has become dangerously indifferent.
Saving our students requires a holistic rethink. Schools must become environments where dignity is non-negotiable. Harassment—whether by teachers or students—must be handled with zero tolerance. Institutional accountability must be strengthened, and counsellors must be made mandatory, not optional. Emotional education must be treated as seriously as math or science. Teachers need training not only in pedagogy but in empathy, communication, and conflict management. Parents must learn to listen, not judge; to guide, not impose; to love unconditionally, not conditionally. The message must be clear: a child’s worth is not defined by marks, medals, or rankings. Childhood is not an exam. It is a journey.
Society must collectively re-examine its unhealthy glorification of competition. We must teach children that mistakes are human, failure is survivable, and asking for help is courageous. Our digital lives must be moderated. Our cultural obsession with “topper culture” must be dismantled.We must create environments where students feel seen, heard, loved, valued, and safe. Because when a child takes his own life, it is not the failure of the child. It is the failure of the systems and adults around him.
The sad news from a Delhi school boy taking his life should haunt us. It should force us to stop, reflect, and rebuild. Another child in Kashmir, another student in Delhi, another teen anywhere—none should feel so helpless, so cornered, so broken, that death appears easier than life.This is our SOS. Our call to conscience. Our moment to act. If we fail to save our students today, we will lose our society tomorrow.
The Author is a doctor at Mubarak Hospital, and a columnist who actively contributes to positive perception management, public debates and reforms on moral, social, and religious issues can be reached at drfiazfazili@gmail.com
