In recent weeks, Lahore has been shaken by tragic reports of student suicides emerging from a private university in Lahore. Similar incidents have taken place all over Pakistan in the last couple of years. These incidents, unfortunately, cannot be treated as isolated. These are portents for things to come.

The students currently filling our universities belong to what is commonly called Gen Z (roughly born between 1990 and 2010). They are often described as digitally savvy, emotionally expressive and socially aware. But they are also the most vulnerable generation when it comes to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety caused by low self-esteem and social comparison.

In Pakistan, too, Gen Z has experienced relentless crises: The economic instability they have gone through is unprecedented. The Covid-19 pandemic brought the whole country, along with the rest of the world, to a standstill. The political chaos around the rise and fall of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf plunged this generation into despair. Endless exposure to the human suffering in Gaza through their screens exacerbated their depression and made their sense of hopelessness much worse than ever before. Unlike earlier generations, they have never experienced a stable world. Their nervous systems are shaped by uncertainty—and then we place them into academic environments built on pressure, comparison and fear of failure.

Universities, especially in Pakistan and South Asia, are built around an outdated model of the typical student: obedient and emotionally invisible. We assume that if a young person is intelligent, they must be able to tolerate humiliation, rigid discipline, harsh grading and constant evaluation. Not so for these new kids on the block. Gen Z is more sensitive to stress, more affected by rejection and more likely to experience anxiety and depression when placed in high-pressure environments.

The most dangerous shift is that academic performance is no longer just about grades; it has become about identity. For one, their career choice is not their own—decisions about which subjects they choose in their matriculation and intermediate levels are often made by their parents. So, by default, just like the previous generations, they are out of sync with their parents and their career choices do not represent them as individuals. Since they are not interested in these subjects, they find them boring and are, therefore, unlikely to do well. This is an additional source of anxiety.

Many Gen Z students fall in love with their classmates or develop relations that are mostly clandestine because of disapproval by parents. The parents of Gen Z children are out of tune with this new generation of students who see them as harsh, disrespectful and insensitive.

Failing a course means disappointing their parents. This might feel like evidence to many Gen Z students that they are a failure. In Pakistani culture, where family honour, parental sacrifice and social status are tied to academic success, this pressure becomes unbearable. The sense of shame in our culture is one of the most predominant negative emotions that can wreak havoc psychologically and emotionally.

Social media makes this worse. This generation of students is constantly watching their peers post their achievements online, appear ultra confident, super attractive, and successful beyond belief. This constant comparison between their ideal selves, represented by a successful peer on social media, and the actual self which they perceive as a failure and a loser, results in a silent upsurge of anxiety, panic and despair.

When a student contemplates suicide, it is not because they want to die. It is usually because they feel trapped and are unable to find a way out. They believe they cannot succeed, quit, disappoint their family or ask for help. In their minds, suicide becomes an escape from humiliation, fear and emotional pain.

In Pakistan, as in other Muslim countries, suicide is considered a sin from which there is no deliverance. In my expert opinion, this is a vital psychological factor that has protected us against suicide. In recent years, however, a barrage of social media posts from all over the world on various belief systems and philosophies has led to a weakening of indigenous belief systems and religious norms. The lack of spirituality, hyper consumerism and materialism propagated on social media has shaken the religious foundations of our society and culture. This has, in addition, eased the internal inhibitions that had protected the previous generations from suicide.

The current generation of students is also exposed to psychological toxicity displayed on social media. Young people complain about how painful life is; how unbearable their difficulties are; and how unfair and unjust other people are. Negative attitudes perpetuated by such posts also lead to widespread depression and anxiety.

Without immediate psychological intervention, there is a risk that students suffering from different mental pressures and emotional pain might give in to suicidal ideation. Unfortunately, most universities are not equipped for this. A token counselling office or a helpline number is not enough. Mental health support must be woven into academic life: teachers trained to notice distress; systems that flag sudden drops in performance; policies that allow failure without disgrace; and environments where students feel safe speaking honestly about their struggles and suffering.

Recently, we decided to launch a training in psychological first aid at a private university in Lahore. This is a relatively new concept but has gained sufficient popularity lately. In this system, even non-psychologists, such as teachers and nurses, are equipped with essential counselling skills required to help prevent serious long term mental illness, self-harm or suicide.

True prevention is not just about therapy; it is about culture. We need to bring about a change in culture in the academia in Pakistan. We need to have a humane academic culture that understands that students need to be engaged in order to learn; that self-worth should not be measured by grades; and that a struggling student is not a problem but a human being in emotional pain.

Parents should also be educated about the needs of this new generation of students. Allow them the freedom to choose and let them follow their hearts, whether about the choice of a career or a marriage partner. Students need to be given respect at home and at school. This is no longer a choice, but an imperative that must be treated as an edict.

If we continue to ignore the emotional cost of raising children and educating students, more tragedies will follow—the generation after Gen Z, Gen Alpha (born in and around 2011), is even more psychologically vulnerable. We need to act today. Tomorrow might just be too late.

The writer is a psychologist, an academic, a poet and a short story writer. He can be reached at [email protected].