High literacy rate and rising suicide cases in Chitral

Mehtab Ahmad Khan (University of Peshawar)

Suicide is the act of killing oneself, most often as a result of depression or other mental illness. Suicide is a global issue. According to WHO reports, almost 800,000 people die due to suicide every year which is one person every 40 seconds.

In this ugly competition, our country is also not too far behind, and especially Chitral is counted among those districts which are known to have high suicide rate. The question is why do people play with their lives?

Why one commits suicide?

There may be many other reasons for suicide in Chitral but I consider one of the most important reason which is low standard education. As per the literacy rate, Chitral is on the top in KP among the educated districts still the number of people committing suicide never goes down. Then how can we call ourselves literate?

Alarming rate of suicide in Chitral

If we are educated by true means then we should never attempt such an immoral act. Suicide is a sign of weakness or a way to escape from pain or challenges and we know the fact that an educated person will never be weak by any means and in any aspect.

It is just not enough to be literate only but we need proper quality education. Unfortunately, our country has a rotten education system, and this awful system when it reaches our territory it becomes poorer.

Hardly 20 percent of about 100 schools and colleges inside the district are giving standard education and the rest are doing nothing beyond their business and if we talk about government schools and colleges they are a bit careless but know they are changing slowly which is a positive sign.

This low standard schooling system and then college education do not build up a student morally strong and do not make him/her proper intellectual at the end. They only promote the rote learning system or memorization system because if the students score good marks in exams they can also score a point for their next session to earn money.

There may be many different types of suicide like egoistic suicide, anomic suicide or altruistic suicide but in my opinion the only reason of suicide is “immature mind” which lead people to use different tools of suicide like drowning in water, poisoning, hanging and shooting, etc.

Suicide is a chronic social issue and we need to be serious about it.  In this regard, primarily seminars and interactive sessions with families should be encouraged and the guardians should be educated about this issue and secondly in the institutions (schools and colleges) there must be a proper class about it.