OCTOBER 9 — Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain. T. Nhaveen. Zara Qairina Mahathir. Yap Shing Xuen. Muhammad Idlan Fareeq Shahril. Irene Sofiya Mohd Khairool Faisal.
Different names. Different years. Different circumstances. Yet each represents a young life lost, a grieving family and a future that will never be realised. As an educator and a mother, I find myself asking an increasingly disturbing question: In our relentless pursuit of academic excellence, have we quietly overlooked the very humanity we are supposed to nurture in our children?
The tragedies involving Zulfarhan and Nhaveen in 2017 should have been a turning point. Nearly a decade later, we are still confronting disturbing incidents of violence and deaths involving students in the school/institutional compound. Although the circumstances differ, and investigations or legal proceedings remain ongoing in some cases, these tragedies demand far more than temporary public outrage. They demand serious reflection on what has gone wrong in our society.
Over the years, Malaysia has continuously reformed its education system. We have revised curricula, changed examination formats, introduced new assessments and reconsidered the age at which children begin formal schooling. But amid these reforms, have we ever evaluated whether our children’s emotional maturity, empathy and moral values are developing at the same pace as their intellectual abilities?
I remember looking through my nephew’s year six textbook and discovering material I had learned in Form Three back in 2002. It struck me how much more our children are expected to learn, and how early. No wonder teachers are overwhelmed and parents are struggling to keep their children academically competitive. Yet, in our relentless pursuit of academic excellence, could we have overlooked something far more alarming?
While we were busy producing high achievers, were we failing to recognise the warning signs of children becoming capable of extraordinary cruelty?
Even more heartbreaking, some of those whose lives have been taken were themselves promising students with aspirations, talents and dreams. Irene Sofiya was remembered as an academically excellent student. Zara Qairina had demonstrated academic and co-curricular promise. Yap Shing Xuen and Zulfarhan Osman were remembered by their teachers and friends for their kindness. Their lives were worth infinitely more than their achievements. Yet their stories remind us that Malaysia is losing young people who could have become its future doctors, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs and leaders. We are losing our future before it even has the chance to unfold.
But whom should we blame?
It would be convenient to hold schools and teachers solely responsible. I believe the problem runs much deeper. Education begins at home. Children need more than academic guidance, tuition classes and material comfort. They need affection, attention, boundaries and meaningful conversations. They need adults who model compassion, respect and emotional regulation.
Yet how many parents today genuinely have sufficient time and energy for their children?
Long working hours, demanding careers and exhausting commutes have become normalised. We celebrate productivity and professional achievement while family time quietly becomes whatever remains. We constantly preach work-life balance. But have we created a society that actually allows families to practise it?
This is not about blaming working parents. It is about questioning a system that demands so much from adults while expecting them to raise emotionally secure, resilient and compassionate children. Meanwhile, social media and unrestricted digital content increasingly influence how children perceive violence, relationships, rejection and conflict. Parental guidance and digital literacy must therefore evolve alongside technological access.
Schools must also do more than deliver academic outcomes. Emotional education, conflict resolution, empathy and respect must become fundamental parts of learning, reinforced through everyday behaviour rather than merely taught in textbooks. We need accessible counselling services, trusted reporting mechanisms, early intervention and genuine institutional accountability. Warning signs of aggression, bullying or psychological distress must never be dismissed as ordinary childhood behaviour.
Nevertheless, making schools safer is only one part of the solution. We need to rethink the entire ecosystem in which our children are raised: our homes, workplaces, education policies, digital environments and lifestyles. Perhaps it is time to slow our relentless pursuit of academic reform and critically examine whether our expectations are developmentally and emotionally sustainable.
Employers must recognise that family well-being matters. Policymakers must consider children’s emotional development alongside academic performance. Parents must prioritise presence over perfection. Communities must rediscover their collective responsibility to protect and guide the young. After all, raising a child takes a village. And perhaps in this dire national situation, it is the entire country that needs to change. We cannot continue measuring national progress solely through examination results, university rankings and economic productivity while overlooking the humanity of the generation we are raising.
What kind of leaders do we want for Malaysia?
Highly intellectual individuals who excel academically but lack empathy? Or capable, compassionate human beings who understand the value of another person’s life? These qualities should never be mutually exclusive.
Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain. T. Nhaveen. Zara Qairina Mahathir. Yap Shing Xuen. Muhammad Idlan Fareeq Shahril. Irene Sofiya Mohd Khairool Faisal.
Remember their names. Remember not merely how they died, but the lives they should have been allowed to live. We cannot bring them back. But we owe them, their families and every child growing up in Malaysia more than condolences and promises of another review. We owe them meaningful change. Their futures were taken far too early. The futures of millions of other children are still in our hands. Let us build a society that is not merely more educated, more productive or more competitive, but fundamentally more humane.
Because the greatest failure of an education system is not producing students who cannot pass an examination. It is failing to nurture human beings who understand the value of another human life.
* Dr Rabi’ah Al-Adawiyah Rahmat is a forensic odontologist specialist and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya, and can be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
