A team of doctors in China took nearly two hours to remove a bunch of sewing needles that a nine-year-old Chinese schoolboy inserted into his stomach, for failing to score 100 percent in the final exams.
The boy who hails from Harbin, Heilongjiang Province of China, had scored 99 percent but was frustrated to miss out on the 100 percent, and stabbed around four needles into his abdomen as self-punishment at the beginning of the winter holiday, Global Times reported. However, the incident came to light only recently, when the boy started getting severe stomach pains and got admitted to The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University.
Though the boy's father had noticed lumps on his son's stomach, he could not figure out the situation as the boy refused to be examined closely. According to media reports, the boy used to score 100 percent in every exam previously.
The schooling system in China has been a much-discussed topic across the whole globe. A survey, conducted in 2010, exposed the exam-related tension encountered by Chinese school children. According to the report, compiled by a team of researchers led by Therese Hesketh from the University College London (UCL), a significant number of primary school children, aged six, suffer from stress due to study pressure from parents and teachers. China's one child policy that forces parents and grandparents to concentrate on the single child and the difficulties in getting admissions for higher education and jobs in a highly populated country have been blamed for this occurrence.
In a 2011 survey, conducted by Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, China was ranked first in the world for pressurizing children to succeed academically. Another report in the same year showed that Chinese students spent nearly five hours extra in school than their American counterparts.
In a shocking incident that happened last year, a high school student in the Henan province hired hitmen through the internet and killed his father and elder sister for pressurizing him to study.
