Schooled into Silence

Inside the high-stakes race for academic success that’s costing Kashmir’s youth their mental health and happiness.

- Peerzada Mohsin Shafi

In Kashmir, a child’s birth brings endless joy. But the moment that child walks into school, something changes.

Suddenly, they are measured, compared, and pushed to compete. School stops being just a place to learn. It becomes a battleground where even five-year-olds find themselves running a race they never agreed to.

What was once pure joy turns into pressure to be productive, focused, and competitive. Being happy isn’t enough anymore.

From early on, kids are taught life is about proving their worth. “Work hard or get left behind” is the message, and “survival of the fittest” stops being a biology lesson and becomes a harsh reality drilled into their minds by parents, teachers, and society.

Here in Kashmir, this idea is even more strict. Our society has fixed academic milestones as the only way to measure a child's future.

Class 10 board exams become the first big judgment day. The marks kids earn get picked apart and compared, defining their entire academic identity.

Class 12 is the second, bigger test, where kids are told whether they will “make it” or “fail.”

But “making it” means something very specific: top grades, cracking tough exams like NEET or IIT-JEE, and landing a government job. Only then is someone seen as truly successful.