Dawn Images

Everyone’s favourite singer and education activist Shehzad Roy marked World Education Day by sending a message to Pakistani parents: education shouldn’t be a burden.

Accompanied by students from schools run by his charitable organisation, the Zindagi Trust, Roy released a new song, ‘Late Ho Gaye’ on Saturday to talk about just that. The music video starts with the singer asking how far along an expectant mother is and following it up by inquiring whether the parents-to-be had enrolled their unborn child in school yet.

When asked how the kid could be enrolled when the parents have neither a name nor a gender, Roy appears on screen to tell them, “Late ho gaye!” (you’re late).

The track serves to criticise the many pressures children face in the course of their time in school, starting with the unreasonably early registration deadlines elite schools have, which often force parents to take two year olds for admissions interviews.

A schoolgirl then pleads, “Mujh ko zara, pehlay honay to do. Dil khol ke, thora ronay to do (At least let me be born first. Let me cry my heart out first).”

The song moves on to the linguistic stress many kids face trying to juggle an English education when they speak other languages at home. A succession of kids tell the viewer, “Teacher ne English mein daanta, ammi ka Urdu mein chaanta, abbu Punjabi bolay saada (My teacher scolded me in English, my mother slapped me in Urdu and my dad speaks in Punjabi).”

Next on the hit-list: tuition centres. Kids dressed up in work clothes tell the screen, “Jaise school se aao, tuition. Bhaari basta phir uthaao, tuition. Saans to lenay do, paani to peenay do, khana to khanay do, nahi! Tuition (As soon as you get home from school, tuition. With your heavy backpack, tuition. Let me catch my breath, drink a glass of water, have something to eat, no! Tuition)!”

The track also calls out parents for giving their kids screens instead of actual parental attention and also for not giving their children enough time to actually be themselves. Roy ends the video with a message — “On World Education Day, let’s pledge to not just burden our kids in the name of education and actually educate them well.”

Many celebrities found the singer’s video intensely relatable, with Maryam Nafees posting it on her Instagram story and comparing Pakistan’s education system to the rest of the world. She said parents are encouraged to send their kids to schools “once they’re emotionally ready to be out there in the world. Ideally at age three, four or five.”

In comparison, she said, “We know how it works in some cities in our country”.

Case No. 9 actor Rushna Khan shared the song too, remarking that “childhood isn’t a race”.

Saboor Ali, another new mother, spoke about the struggle she was going through with her own daughter’s schooling. “Serena is still so little, but here we are in the school admission race already. The pressure is real, and honestly, it feels so unfair for parents and for the tiny souls too.”

Sarwat Gilani posted the singer’s reel to her own account and added some apt commentary in the caption. She said when celebrities such as Roy start talking about social issues such as the “pressures of school admissions, unrealistic expectations, and the flaws within our education system,” it means that “the conversation is shifting, and that the need for change can no longer be ignored”.

Education, she said, has become “a race, a comparison, a constant source of anxiety for children and parents alike”.

Gilani said Roy’s voice is important in society as it “reminds us that reform begins with awareness — and awareness begins with speaking up”. She said she hopes to see “an education system that nurtures curiosity, creativity, and emotional well-being — not just grades and admissions”.

In the comments under the singer’s post, many celebrities praised Roy’s initiative. Mawra Hocane said he was “correcting the country’s system, one video at a time”. She hoped people could gather the courage to “find their way out of this rat race” after watching the video.

Celebrity makeup artist Natasha Ali Lakhani said the video was “such a powerful reflection of our schooling system” and the pressure placed on children, which is “neither conducive to their well-being, nor to parents having balanced mental health or a healthy relationship with education”.

Content creator Waliya Najeeb asked why we were “so obsessed with putting literal babies in school”. She said she’d been asked on multiple occasions why her two-year-old wasn’t in school, which she found “a bit odd”.

Roy has a history of taking tangible steps to improve the standard of education in Pakistan with his stewardship of schools that pride themselves on a more holistic approach to education. His schools offer chess lessons as well as music lessons, allowing for children to do more than be stuck in classrooms.