Dear Education System – Asyia Iftikhar2 min read

There is no way to sugarcoat the failures of the system.

Seven year olds revising for ‘life changing exams’ is the beginning of a sickening spiral, leading to deteriorating mental health among teenagers, and eventually impostor syndromes, rampant among the brightest young people. 

Essentially the government and society has increased the pressure to achieve, and decreased the support to get there. 

Once you could buy a house and climb the property ladder from your early 20s, now even renting a flat costs so much, we have more and more people as young as 18 on the streets.

Once you could fail your exams and retake the next term, decide you hate your course and change on your terms. Now if you fail, you are scrambling to catch up and if you are displeased with your course, too bad, it’s too late.

‘In the education system I feel I have been forced to mask symptoms of mental health and my own behaviours’ – Anon.

Once you could find an entry level job for something you cared for, gain the experience and climb up in your field. Now, some experience is no experience and your options are gone. 

There is no room for error so people work themselves up, burning themselves out. Creating unhealthy habits, fuelling each others rage, passion and anxiety.

‘real geniuses that when you talk to them are still not confident and say things like ‘I’m gonna fail’- Ayshe, 20, London. 

The cycle is never stopped. A breakdown is now a ‘bad day’, and a spout of depression is ‘a tough time’. The waiting lists grows, the waiting grows. The mental health organisations pushed to breaking point, barely able to support itself, let alone a generation of broken and frightened young people. 

False hope is the bedrock of the system. Leading you on with predicted grades, interviews, rejected application after rejected application, results days, exams after exams after exams. The name of the game is memory not maintenance. 

‘Don’t even know where to begin with the failings of this system.’ Felicity, 19, Birmingham.

We need to change this toxic environment before it is too late.

 

Asyia