But instead you're dumping on her because of "Microsoft" in the title? If you're going to dump on someone, dump on Microsoft! And even that is a backhanded insult to her. There are just some very bright 9-year-olds out there.
The negative comments here don't come close to capturing how messed up this is.
Kids don't care about super-achievement of credentials. Mostly they just want to know their parents love them and to be like other kids. It's parents who perversely put their children through this, to fill their own ego needs. Your dog show analogy is unfortunately apt.
As for "a path leading out of that mess", the only path I know is growing as a person. What's sad about these manufactured prodigies is that they end up having to do a lot of that the hard way, if they do it at all.
I am projecting my own experience as a child onto her, but when I was her age I heard about Microsoft credentials. I considered trying for them, but my mother's friend told me they were a distraction, and gave me a copy of Turbo C++ instead. I can't remember ever thinking about pleasing my parents. It never entered my conscious thought. I just knew I wanted to learn to program computers, and I couldn't, in that time, be interested in computers as a kid and envision Microsoft's credentials with the disdain that I do now. I suspect it's the same now, in India.
It's true that the only way out of credentialism is growing oneself as a person, and finding a way to develop a self-referent identity. The advantage is that one grows while striving, and one can often find oneself in much better place, with better social support, and deeper values. It's a lot more difficult to see this in the construct of an RPG, or in most public high-schools.
Why just a microsoft certification ? there can be so much more the girl can do with her abilities!! things that are more fruitful, knowledge that is more universal than a microsoft certy!
I read such stories almost every week in India. X kid doing that or this. All crap.
your point: the parents compete using their kids it's right.
We don't see any of these kids in the newspapers when they are grown up. Why? Because these kids aren't born for what they are forced to do. Once they start using their brains, they change and begin to pursue what they want.
The way I look at it, her parents are trying to show her the best path possible and use her skills (memorizing thirukkural when you are 3 is awesome, 1330 couplets ).
It certainly did not turn out so bad in Tiger Wood's case...
I am an American and I was older than this girl, but I don't think you can totally discount the possibility that she just wanted to do it for herself.
My cofounder and his wife once took the Diplomatic Service Exam. She had wanted to be a diplomat, he joined for support. They got through the final rounds, and it was far from boring! During their time there, they witnessed some incredible undiplomatic behavior from an actual diplomat in the foreign service, freaking out in the cafeteria line. They were quizzed ineptly on the 'canon' of American literature. Finally, (if I recall correctly) they passed the test. It was, however, useless, because all of the jobs went to Reagan's cronies, instead.