A new study has analyzed suicides of children and young teens, and has reached the conclusion that in more than ninety percent of suicides, “they did so mainly because they could not bear the heavy pressure of the test-oriented education system.”
As this year’s gaokao rolls closer, and end-of-term tests loom for younger students, the pressures are mounting. The study was run by professor Cheng Pingyuan, of Nanjing Normal University, and his work was noticed by China Daily, which reports:
Analyzing 79 cases of primary and middle school student suicides in 2013, Cheng found that 92.7 percent of them did so after arguing with their teachers or having lived under the heavy pressure of study.
“The pursuit of high test scores not only brings pressure to students, but also to teachers, making the relationship between teachers and students worse, especially when students perform poorly in exams, which finally leads to some students’ suicides,” he said […]
China’s test-obsessed school culture has been the subject of a good amount of criticism for its crazy high-stress workload, and studies like Cheng’s may help convince administrators, parents, teachers, and whoever else is in charge to cut back a bit.
