Please don’t make your Child Arfa Kareem

Yesterday, another bright star of Pakistan, Arfa Kareem, lost her life due to the extra ordinary pressure of sustaining her achievement of young age at the secondary education level at Pakistan. Inna lliah e waina elayeh rajeeon. Most of the Pakistani parents are leading their children on her track to get the media hype. Is this good for children or not?

Arfa a young girl form Faisalabad, achieved the lot of media hype, praise and awards on becoming the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCPs) in the world at very young age.  She got the attention not only in Pakistan but all over the world. Her parents became proud of her  but they fail to realize that she still have to go through the secondary school examination and she will come under huge pressure to sustain her success.

Certification exams are the test of analytical abilities where passing marks are enough to become certified. As compare to certification, our secondary schools examinations are the test of memory where there is always an extra pressure on student to get more and more marks and grades. As a result students are pressurized to cram more and more.

Arfa got 13 A grades in O level and was doing A level when she got stroke and now died. In her various interviews she talks more about imagination importance than knowledge, clear indication that she was not liking the examination system where knowledge (memory) is being tested. In one of her interview to PTV anchor Tauseeq Haider, she told that she do not study too much but she wants to give 100% in exams, but that is causing headache and pain. Those were the clear indication that she was studying under extreme pressure to perform at par with her earlier success.

You cannot achieve top level every time, but immature mind doesn’t allow a little less success than the top level. Everything should come with the age. Idea of parents to jump their child in early age, puts too much pressure on the child to keep performing at adulthood. Looking at the early age success and media attention of Arfa Kareem, many parents also have led their child to jump, Sitara Akbar is  the key example of early jump. Similar to her, Ali Nowazish got huge media attention on his success at secondary school examinations but now higher education is in-front of him. Both of them are under huge pressure as world is looking at them that how will they perform after their success.

It’s a request to the parents that do not make your child, Arfa kareem. Your genius child, will get certification easily but that will put a lot of pressure on them to carry on with their success. Otherwise be ready for the result similar as of Arfa kareem. We are unable to change our examination system of craming to get more gardes (marks) but can save our children from extra pressure. Your child will achieve great success in future inshallah.

Arfa may you rest in peace. Ameen