Suicide prevention and the need for more funding and resources for suicide prevention were the focus of discussion yesterday by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers on two Legislative Yuan committees.
Public universities should get more money to help tackle the growing problem of student suicides and suicide attempts, two DPP lawmakers on the Education and Culture Committee said.
During the committee’s review of the Ministry of Education’s annual budget and those of public universities, DPP Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) said the majority of the ministry’s proposed budget of NT$166 million (US$5.76 million) was for human-resources costs, leaving only NT$20 million for other expenses.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
That is not enough to cover the growing need for guidance counselors and suicide-prevention efforts at public universities, which have seen an increase in the number of student suicide attempts in the past few years, he said.
A 2018 ministry inspection of guidance counselor services at public universities found that several schools did not meet standards, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told the committee, adding that the ministry plans to work with schools on suicide-prevention efforts.
Chang Liao said that it would be difficult to implement such plans, given the budget proposals.
Citing a reduction in suicides among elderly people between 1994 and 2018 after the government invested money in suicide-prevention efforts, increasing the resources to tackle the problem among students could see a similar reduction, he said.
In 2014, 5.1 percent of students in Taiwan aged between 15 and 24 attempted suicide, which increased to 6.4 percent in 2017 and to 9.1 percent last year, the lawmaker said.
The government has funded emotion-management programs for students, but more needs to done, he said.
The law requires one university guidance counselor per 1,200 students, but that might not be enough, so the law needs to be amended and schools given more resources, DPP Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) said, adding that the ministry’s 2018 inspection found 50 universities had too few counselors.
Pan said that the ministry would increase funding to schools that do have not enough counselors.
“Students inflicting self-harm is a topic that demands attention. There have been 76 suicide attempts so far this year and 59 last year,” Pan said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s suicide-prevention hotline was discussed at the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee’s meeting.
DPP Legislator Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) said that the 1995 hotline received nearly 570,000 calls last year, but was only able to answer 190,000 of them, or 33 percent.
There are not enough volunteers to staff the hotline, and the health ministry should look into the problem, Su said.
As many of the volunteers are older people, there might also be communication problems when they are answering late-night calls from younger callers, so the health ministry should look into making younger volunteers available for late-night calls, she said.
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