Source: China Daily
Universities will offer more help to young people suffering from depression after a report showed suicide has now become the No. 1 cause of death among students.
A study by Shanghai Education Commission released on Tuesday found 23 college students attempted to take their own lives last year, while 19 succeeded.
It put suicide ahead of acute diseases, traffic accidents and fires in the list of main causes of death.
More than half of those who attempted or died in acts of suicide had been suffering from depression caused by pressure related to studies, employment or a relationship.
"By releasing such a ranking, we aim to alert the public and raise everyone's awareness about mental health among youths," said Mo Fuchun, deputy director of the commission.
To help ease the psychological burden, colleges will now add mental health courses to the curriculum, either on a compulsory or selective basis, while the commission said it aimed to have a certified counselor for every 3,000 students on every campus by 2012.
Adding more courses? Will that help?
This is not a problem that is solvable unless the social strucure of the country changes and there is less pressure on kids to succeed.
Families are so poor that the only hope to get out of that situaiton of their kids to be successful in school. Some families will borrow money and work multiple jobs for their children to get into a good University and get a good job to pay the debt back. Some kids can strive in this immense pressure and kick everyone's ass in school, some cannot.
Those that cannot have nowhere to go. The school work piles up, the parents add pressure on succeeding and they have no one to turn too? Are they really going to go talk to a counsellor? What can they do?
There really is nothing the school can do. The University is very black and white. Here is our program, you pass these 40 courses in 4 years with good marks and you graduate. It's the parents and students that choose to enter this cauldron.
University isn't for everyone. Not everyone is a scholar. The more pressure you put on a poor student, one day that glass of water will overflow.
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2 comments:
Surely you are right. A persons value must be inherent, not obtained by external measures such as grades and jobs. If you are not taught to value yourself for who you are, the world will soon wear you down.
It is tragic that our world has been transformed into a place where conspicious consumption is our only goal and measure of worth. The pursuit of inner tranquility, of bliss, transcendence and enlightenment has been smothered by corporations intent on selling use yet another consumer good to enrich themselves and impoverish us.
Suicide is tragic and not always preventable, but self worth and a vision of a better inner world would surely help.
It is sad that our world is measured by money and status. Parents that are poor want their children to become what they could not. That is alot of pressure.
Also, there the issue of external measures you mentioned. One of them is 'face'. Parents often use their children as ammo for bragging rights and punish them severely cause that A- which is worse than the neighbours A+ is embrassing.
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