VietNamNet Bridge – The number of students committing suicide because they fail the university entrance exams has been increasing year after year, which is really alarming to the society.

About 300 universities nationwide have made public the exam marks. However, according to the Ministry of Education and Training, only 30 percent of examinees pass the university entrance exams, while the other 70 percent do not have the opportunities to follow university education.

According to Tri Thuc Tre journal, Vietnam is the country which has the highest percentage of students failing the university entrance exams. In the thoughts of many Vietnamese parents and students, following university education is the best way to make their way in the world. Therefore, they feel shameful when they fail the exams or even commit suicide when the doors to universities close before them.

In early July 2010, NTH, 18, in Lam Ha district of Lam Dong province, drank herbicide to commit suicide, because she did not receive the notification about the university entrance exams.

Prior to that, in late 2009, Nguyen Thi V in Con Cuong district of Nghe An province, committed suicide by eating la ngon (Gelsemium elegans) because she was too disappointed about the exam result.

In 2006, Nguyen Thi Dieu T in Nam Dinh province, hung herself after realizing that she failed the university entrance exams.

Recently, in the 2011-2012 exam season, a student tried to commit suicide with the intention to jump to the ground at Lomonosov school after she was asked to leave the exam room because of the exam regulation violation.

Cong Thien, a doctor of the National Mental Health Institute, said that the months after universities make the exam results public are always the busiest time for the institute because of the sharp increase of patients.

Thien has affirmed that suffering depression or mental disorder phenomena due to hard pressure from exams has become alarming.

The value of life measured by the exam marks?

Psychologists say that in the thoughts of the young people who committed suicide because of the exam failure, the value of life is measured by the exam marks.

The problem here is the students’ misunderstanding about the life value, which is believed to be generated by the “achievement disease” prevalent in Vietnam’s education.

Students are always told that they have to obtain high marks and follow university education, if they want to make success in their lives.

At home, parents tell their children that passing the university entrance exams is a must. At school, teachers tell their children to exactly follow the ways they want. Students only have 12 years to fulfill the dream of their parents and become excellent students as they are told to do.

Therefore, a lot of students seem to have only one way to follow when they fail the exams: committing suicide to hide themselves from the shame they cause to themselves and their families.

Psychologists have rung the alarm bell over the increasingly high number of students committing suicide in the last few years, saying that the figure shows that Vietnamese students feel puzzled when they try to escape crisis and stress.

Every year, when publishing the names of excellent students who come first at the entrance exams to schools, local newspapers also report a lot of cases, where students commit suicide just because they fail the exams.

C. V