Are We Sacrificing Our Well-being for Grades?
In a society that values CGPA as its measure of success, more and more Bangladeshi students are putting their mental health at risk in the pursuit of academic excellence. They are part of a culture where the competition is sharper than ever; and as they vie for the very limited number of places at our country’s top universities, the obsession with securing the highest possible grades intensifies—sometimes with the deadly payoff of added-on mental health problems.
In Bangladesh, almost 40% of students show marked signs of depression, according to a recent study. Academic pressure may be driving this trend. The symptoms of depression that students show are not usually associated with previous understandings of adolescent depression. This study holds major implications not only for understanding our students better but also for how we might act in service to them. We are not only failing to help students but also possibly harming them by ignoring the academic pressure they are under.
As we navigate this academic landscape, let’s challenge the status quo: they’re just letters and numbers on a page and we must remember that our brains deserve to be loved too. This is the year for making changes for the better; the year we start valuing education and students’ lives, not only for them to barely make it through, but to truly excel academically. By doing so, a process of positive change can be initiated and children of a new generation would be motivated to learn as much as they want to be healthy or vice versa.