It’s okay if you don’t score straight As

Yet another pupil has committed suicide.

I’m referring to the pupil from SMK Raja Abdullah who took his life after going through a difficult Additional Mathematics paper in his SPM.

The police officer said the aunt found him in his room at his apartment at Jinjang with a necktie wrapped around his neck, tied to a window frame.

At the age of seventeen, this pupil was a local actor, top student in his school, straight-A achiever in his PMR and selected participant of the elite JUARA programme for high achievers. He had his whole life before him.

What caused this boy, who had so much more than most other kids in Malaysia and around the world, to give up on life?

We can only speculate, but surely by now we have to acknowledge that suicide is becoming a trend among school and/or college students who put too much pressure on themselves to achieve perfection.

Just four months ago, a pupil who was sitting for his STPM examination jumped off from the 19th floor of a flat in Penang. He was also a bright pupil from an elite school in the island. In 2007, a twelve-year-old ended her life after finding her examinations too difficult.

Coincidentally, all three pupils came from a middle-class family and were members of ethnic minorities. Both categories testify to their higher expectations, and demand, of academic perfectionism.

Life is indeed tough, but those who seem to have the toughest life and are subject to abject poverty do not commit suicide. So no matter how tough one’s life seems to be, it is not the critical factor that decides if one will commit suicide.

Being members of ethnic minorities, these pupils felt they had to score straight As if they were to secure scholarships. The coveted JPA scholarship is highly competitive, and since there’s a limited number of scholarships and an ever-increasing number of straight-A pupils, many people have the perception that you do not stand a chance if you don’t get straight As. It’s straight As or nothing.

There are two types of people in the world – those who divide things into two and those who don’t. In this myopic world, we divide exam results into two categories: straight A or failure.

I know at this point, many of us will jump and curse the quota system and systemic discrimination against ethnic minorities. It is true, an undeniable fact, that ethnic minorities stand a significantly lower chance of obtaining scholarships.

There are many scholarships offered by companies other than JPA, a federal agency. However, they come nowhere near the number of scholarships given out by JPA on a yearly basis.

Ethnic minorities can't apply for the only other massive scholarship which has benefited thousands of pupils every year, MARA scholarships. Ethnic minorities lose out both in terms of merit (result) and volume (number of scholarships to apply for).

But I think there’s something else too. Even if we fix the issue of distribution, the number of excellent pupils will always exceed the number of scholarships. Demand will always exceed supply in this case. There’s no way we can fulfil the wish of everyone who dreams of getting a scholarship.

We, as a society, feed students with the myth of straight As or nothing. We also feed them another myth – that they ought to look only at those scholarships as salvation and success.

When pupils struggle to cope with these two myths, it’s only a matter of time before things get out of hand. We have to rebuke these myths. You have to tell your kids that you will still love them if they do not get straight As. Tell your siblings, cousins or whoever that there are much more important things in life than straight As.

Someone has to break these myths or else they will keep messing with pupils’ heads. These myths and the mismatch of expectations drive students to hell.

By the way, the very fact that this whole discourse centres around straight As shows that we are talking about a bunch of bright kids. It is an elitist discourse, to talk about straight As.

There are more pupils who fail to achieve an A in their SPM than there are those who obtain all As. Some pupils can't even read or speak English (or Malay for that matter) after some eleven years at school.

When you are seventeen, you shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the chase for perfection. You should enjoy all the imperfections in life – the snoring of your father, the routine of washing dishes after your mum finishes cooking, the holidays that are yet to come. As the great Yasmin Ahmad used to say, "It’s the imperfections that make us perfect."

So you young fellas out there, it’s okay not to score straight As in your examinations. Yeah, it’s nice to get scholarships. But even if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world. And even if you do get a scholarship, then what? You think you reach heaven, is it? Life is not a video game in which you score straight As and the game ends, perfectly.

Lastly, if you are thinking of quitting life as it is, do not jump off buildings or hang yourself. Buy a one-way ticket to somewhere, anywhere. This is quite a risky thing to do and might radically change your life, but at least there’s a second chance for you to do something... else in life. – November 28, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.