The narrow lane

His mother was a leading newsreader, his father a rising government official. In a couple of months, he would graduate from an ‘aristocrats’ school’ – so named because of its expensive fees and exclusiveness – and begin a new chapter of his life on a university campus. He had everything his less fortunate peers coveted.

Yet on the eve of the university entrance examination, his body was found in the school grounds.

His mother had been warned. Two hours before he was seen to throw himself from the fifth floor, he told her on the phone ‘I am not feeling great today’. Had she known that these would be his last words to her, the beloved son whom she fondly introduced to all her colleagues after his birth, she would have dropped everything to be with him.

Theories abound as to why he had chosen to end his fortunate life, especially at that moment.

Some observed that his privileged family background must have brought unbearable pressure on him to perform well at all times. Some maintained that since his parents were both public figures and preoccupied with building their own careers, he might have missed out on the healthy and regular dose of gentle counselling which is so crucial in the rocky journey of a teenager. Some argued that it was sheer peer pressure before the most divisive event of his life: the higher education entrance examination. Most believed that he was pushed to his death by the current education system, a system that deems getting a university place as the ultimate goal of one’s compulsory education, a system that glorifies only those who ‘get there’ and spells ‘shame on you’ to those who do not.

He was not the only victim of this examination. Such tragedies happen regularly, especially at those ‘key schools’ where only the top students are accepted. Although such tragic events are not always reported, complaints about the system are growing, and increasingly, parents are sending their adolescent children to study overseas, where the educational diet is perceived to be more wholesome and balanced. However, the majority of Chinese parents are not lucky enough to have this option. They must put their children through a system they do not necessarily agree with: each couple must constantly push their only child to score well at examinations, and as an insurance policy, stretch their own wits, influence and money to get the best education for their child in case its scores do not meet the near-absolute entry requirements of the ‘key schools’.

China’s education system is in dire need of reform. This is a view which is universal and has been expressed for a very long time. Until this happens, there will be more victims like the elite student who took his own life because he was terrified of ‘failure’.