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.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS