Poor life planning is a reason students take their own lives, the Secretary for Education Eddie Ng Hak-kim said on Friday. His comments were based on a report from the Committee on Prevention of Student Suicides which will be submitted to the Education Bureau at the end of the month.
“The subjects that students picked at university might not have been what they were interested in, or what they were good at,” Ng said. “That is why good life planning is important.”
The committee was set up in March after seven student suicide cases emerged in the space of just nine days.
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“They might not have been able to stand the pressure from having to meet their own expectations, their family’s expectations, and their peer’s expectations,” Ng added. Should something undesirable happen in their lives, they would be more prone to taking their own lives, he said.
If you are experiencing negative feelings, please call: The Samaritans 2896 0000 (24-hour, multilingual), Suicide Prevention Centre 2382 0000 or the Social Welfare Department 2343 2255. The Hong Kong Society of Counseling and Psychology provides a WhatsApp hotline in English and Chinese: 6218 1084.
