Statistic of the Day: HK Students Contemplating Suicide

Some 2.8 percent of student surveyed had suicidal thoughts

It's tragic to discover thousands of primary and secondary students tried to commit suicide in the last school year.

The Department of Health released a survey of 233,000 primary and 97,000 secondary pupils, asking them about their growth, vision, hearing, psychosocial health, and behaviour.

In the results the department found 2.8 percent of the children reported thinking about committing suicide in the last academic year, while 1.3 percent -- or almost 4,300 -- said they actually attempted to take their own lives.

Chinese University psychiatry professor Sandra Chan says the resumption of face-to-face classes after the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in increased emotional stress among students.

"You can easily see that in the real-world situation when students' academic demands are rising, especially in the post-Covid [era] and when schools actually are catching up on schedule and the curriculum that they have missed in the past few years... You can imagine the kind of adjustment coupled with academic stress," she said.

Chan said more needed to be done to make mental health services more accessible.

"There must be some multi-level collaboration to prioritise mental well-being as part of the core education initiative, so that will help our family and students address their needs and use the resources available. The priority really is to have policies at school level, at health care level to make these resources accessible and trusted."

While catching up on academics and having difficulty in performing well on tests may be one issue, the other is how the school system has evolved to include more national education, seeing friends and relatives leaving Hong Kong and wondering what hope they have left for their future in the city.

Children are very sensitive, and their emotions need to be recognised and addressed... unless the government doesn't think they are the future of Hong Kong...