Tragedies reveal that many schools fail at suicide prevention

Just days after the new semester began, a tragic wave of suicides swept across the country as several students from elementary and high schools were reported to have taken their own lives.

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old girl in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, jumped from a building and killed herself, according to reports in local media.

The girl, in her senior year in high school, was reportedly facing a lot of pressure due to an exam, yet students who knew her well said she was a talented girl who excelled at study.

Then, on Thursday, an 8-year-old girl in Guangyuan, Sichuan Province, committed suicide by jumping out of the window of a building. She was staying with her aunt at the time. Her mother, Feng Shiqing, told the Western China City Daily that the girl had called her in tears the night before, because her teacher had scolded her.

The recent increase in youth suicide has drawn attention to the lack of psychological services provided for students. Experts say that both parents and schools need to play a greater role in caring for the mental health of young people. Crucially, parents and schools need to start applying less pressure when it comes to exams.

"Under the exam-oriented education system, students are under a lot of pressure to study. They often believe that their lives are worthless if they don't get high scores. When you add the intense academic expectations of parents, the students are left feeling depressed, isolated and anxious, which in turn leads to psychological problems," Wang Hongcai, an education professor from Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

Slow progress

Despite the high stakes of failure, many schools are reticent to implement reforms. One such example is the high school affiliated with the China Conservatory, an elite school in Beijing's Chaoyang District specializing in music teaching.

The school was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons when in July 2011, eight students in the same class attempted suicide. Fortunately, they were unsuccessful.

A teacher, surnamed Fan, told the Global Times that the school hasn't taken any measures to address the mental well-being of students, aside from "having psychological speeches at regular intervals."

Prior to the suicide attempt, the parents of the students involved had been called by the school and informed that their children were failing too many classes. The school's rules dictate that a student be expelled if they fail more than a third of the school's 15 courses.

According to a survey carried out by the China Youth & Children Research Center in 2008, only 7.5 percent of Chinese schools are equipped with counseling rooms.

"Some counselors don't work full-time. They're either the teachers who teach politics courses or Chinese language teachers. Few have psychology degrees. When students have severe psychological problems, counselors are often incapable of helping them," Sun Yunxiao, an expert from the center told the People's Daily.

Making a change

With psychological counseling still an underdeveloped field in China, rising rates of youth suicide have proven to be a wake-up call for authorities.

In recent years, the Ministry of Education has launched a number of initiatives to improve mental health within the youth population. Since 2008 this has involved opening counseling rooms at primary and secondary schools and universities as well as setting up counseling centers in cities.

"We're still in the beginning in terms of psychological counseling. We've found that counseling rooms at schools should be equipped with at least two or three full-time teachers who are trained in psychology, and be equipped with facilities that can attract students," Che Hongsheng, a professor of psychology from Beijing Normal University, who is participating in the project, told the Global Times.

The Beijing Bayi High School was recruited as a pilot school. The school established a counseling room in early 2004 and has set aside three rooms for psychological counseling, including and entertainment room for students to relax via psychological tests and games.

Two full-time teachers provide counseling services.

"We expect teachers and parents to participate in the counseling system, and notify us of any change in the students' psychological condition, so we can cooperate," Wang Pei, a counselor at the Beijing Bayi High School, told the Global Times.

Parents should stop using heavy-handed, high-pressure behavior when dealing with their children, and instead respect them and interact with them on a more equal footing, Wang said.

"Unlike adults who tend to be tortured by mental illness for a long time, students commit suicide on the spur of the moment. They have no experience of dealing with difficulties and frustration, and tend to have extreme thoughts and hurt themselves," Wang Hongcai said.

Aside from counseling rooms in schools, counseling rooms outside schools have been opened and sponsored by local governments in recent years, including some in Guizhou, Shandong, Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces.

Stressed relationships

Relationships can be crucial in suicide cases. Five primary school students jumped into a river in a suicide pact in 2007, resulting in two deaths. The survivors said they attempted suicide because they could not endure the stress caused by bad relationships with other students.

According to a report released by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission in January last year, there had been an increase in suicide attempts for elementary and high school students in Shanghai. The report also revealed that a large number of suicide cases were caused by family disputes related to school stress.

"Some parents attach great importance to scores, which pressures their kids and causes the students to rebel after entering high school. The difficult relationships with their parents prevent students from communicating with them," said a teacher who gave her surname as Lu from a Beijing experimental school.

However, it's not just parents who drive students to desperate acts. Teachers also shoulder some of the blame.

In 2008, a 14-year-old girl killed herself by jumping into a pond at school, after she was scolded by her teacher for reading comics in class.　

"The exam-oriented education system should be changed to end the problem. Parents should be more concerned about the comprehensive capabilities of their children instead," Wang Hongcai said.