The Ministry of Education (MOE) must re-evaluate its suicide prevention strategy and address a lack of professional counselors at schools to improve the mental health safety net on campuses, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said on Tuesday.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in Taiwan after accidents, DPP legislators Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉), Lo Mei-ling (羅美玲) and Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said in a statement, citing statistics released last year by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
A report published by members of the Control Yuan this month showed that suicides among people aged 15 to 24 increased almost two-and-a-half times from 4,365 in 2016 to 10,659 last year, Chiu told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
Moreover, a shortfall of professional counselors serving students has worsened, he said.
As of June, there was a shortfall of 174 professional counselors, compared with a shortage of 140 last year, he said.
Throughout their academic career, students struggle with issues related to their studies, families and social lives, Chiu said.
The government should offer them a good counseling program so that such problems are properly addressed, he said.
Education authorities from the central government to the local level have a responsibility to help students through such difficulties, he added.
The Student Guidance and Counseling Act (學生輔導法) stipulates that there should be at least one guidance counselor for every 1,200 students at junior-high school level and above, Lo said.
However, that ratio is not sufficient, she said.
There are still schools — public and private — that have not attained that requirement, including some that have no professional counselors, she said.
“Who are students supposed to turn to with their problems?” she asked.
The turnover rate among professional guidance counselors is high, Lo said.
Students who are seeing a counselor might have the process interrupted by a resignation and face problems transitioning to a new counselor, including possible loss of trust, she said.
The education ministry must spend more time considering how it can reach out to students in a timely fashion, she said, adding that the central government must pay more attention to the counseling needs of international students in Taiwan.
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