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Hong Kong youth
OpinionHong Kong Opinion
Tik Chi Yuen
Marie Pang
Tik Chi YuenandMarie Pang

Opinion | Stressful Hong Kong education system cannot escape blame for student despair

  • The Education Bureau’s response to rising student suicides has been superficial at best. It must overhaul the system, starting with the homework policy
  • The government should also set up a student suicide prevention committee

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Secondary school students in Hong Kong on July 10, 2020. The Education Bureau attributes the rise in student suicides mainly to the challenges of a return to normality after the pandemic. Photo: Dickson Lee
Tik Chi YuenandMarie Pang

Student suicides and self-harm in Hong Kong are casting a long shadow over our society – and leaving a stain on our collective conscience.

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Behind the cold numbers provided by the Education Bureau are desperate cries of help that appear to have gone unnoticed. Its data on primary and secondary schools show a doubling of suspected suicides over just five years – from 14 deaths in 2018, 23 in 2019, 21 in 2020, 25 each in 2021 and 2022, to 31 last year.

When the loss of precious, young lives is reduced to mere numbers, it is as if the bureau stands at the edge of a vast ocean, unable to fathom the depths of students’ struggles. It is a moment that calls for introspection, for the bureau to confront the urgent need to turn the tide. According to the police, more than 300 schoolchildren attempted suicide last year.

Describing the problem of student suicides with a hail of numbers does not help the public understand the nature of the issue. It underscores the authorities’ persistent downplaying of the matter, evident from their failure to develop targeted preventive policies and their reluctance to confront the depths of students’ mental anguish.

The bureau attributes the rise in student suicides mainly to the challenges of a return to normality after the pandemic, conveniently absolving itself of all responsibility. Its solutions include a “three-tier school-based emergency mechanism” to provide professional help to children at high risk of suicide – a temporary scheme recently extended to the end of this year – and an exhortation for teachers to “show more care”.
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These superficial measures, about as much help as a Band-Aid on a festering wound, are incapable of unravelling the complex web of underlying issues.

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