How does school pressures affect students and are schools doing enough to preserve their well-being?
A poll of 419 social workers posted in secondary schools showed that they saw more than 2,000 cases of students displaying suicidal thoughts and/or behaviour in the past academic year.
Though the root causes of their behaviour were not stated in the report, it was found that almost half (40%) of the students were from band one schools. This was followed by 34.9% from band two and 25.1% from band three schools.
Social workers also saw the most suicidal cases in band one schools, reported The Standard.
Band one schools cater to the highest-achieving students. It is widely perceived that the better ranked band of school a student attends, the better his/her chances of getting into top-notch universities.
Entrance into the different bands of schools depends on examination results at the end of their primary education. Students have thus been subjected to excessive amounts of homework and extra lessons through their academic career.
Calls for a system reform to alleviate the drilling culture in schools have pushed the country’s Education Bureau to update a controversial primary school assessment. But some educators are uncertain that the move is enough to improve the situation.
A separate poll of a teacher’s union recently found a catch-22 in the system – while they want to reduce pupils’ workloads, officials have been expanding the school curriculum and increasing learning goals.
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