English-language teacher Amy Chan* has been making an extra effort to look out for teenagers in distress since a girl at her Hong Kong secondary school killed herself last year. Since the academic year began last September, she has referred two of her pupils to the school’s social workers. “No matter what we do, it seems impossible to prevent students from having negative thoughts.
We don’t understand why so many think about suicide so readily,” she said. After the student’s death, the school cut the number of assessments to reduce academic stress, and has been holding regular mental health activities including talks and mindfulness workshops. “Finding out who has mental health needs has become the top priority,” Chan said.
“The strategy is to identify potentially suicidal students as early as possible, because we don’t know what they might do when they are not under our supervision outside campus.” Hong Kong schools have made their students’ mental health a priority following a surge of suicides and suicide attempts by young people since the Covid-19 pandemic, and especially after the current academic year began. The Education Bureau recorded 32 suspected suicides among primary and secondary school students last year, more than double the figure in 2018.
With limited resources and manpower, some schools are struggling to cope and some teachers themselves are finding it hard to deal with the added burden of being part of the unanticipated suicide prevent.
