The main factors that cause child suicides in China

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The new Annual Report on China’s Education 2018, released on Wednesday, unveiled the main causes of teenage and child suicides within the last five years. Some of the issues addressed in the report were teenagers dependency toward mobile technology and the amount of academic pressure put on them from society.

An analysis on primary and middle school students across the country was conducted by the Chinese nonprofit organization 21st Century Education Research Institute. Researchers looked closely into journal articles, relevant public statistics and media reports from October 2016 to September 2017.

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Their findings showed that the main reasons for schoolchildren’s suicide can be roughly divided into six categories. Family conflicts (33%), academic pressure (26%), teacher-student conflicts (16%), psychological problems (10%), romantic disputes (5%) , school bullying (4%), and other issues (6%).

According to the report, the complex influences brought about by families, schools, and society can generate a negative impact on students’ self-recognition and emotional adjustment, which is important for their growth into adulthood. Deaths and attempted suicide cases mainly occurred at home or on campus.

Although the family conflicts ratio is higher than academic pressure, analyzing the reasons behind family issues revealed that many “parents blamed students’ school performance” and “quarreled over schoolwork”.

There are similar situations in the teacher-student conflicts cases like “cellphones confiscated and criticism from teachers”. Considering that both of these factors revolve around education, researchers believe that academic pressure is in fact a primary reason for suicide rates among children and adolescents.

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It is worth mentioning that 23 cases out of 215 cases were directly related to mobile phones. Many children and teenagers had committed suicide because their parents “don’t buy them iPhones” or “forbid them from playing on their phones at night”.

Depression is an important psychological problem in suicide cases. Dating and relationships are also precipitating factors. Among the causes attributed to other issues, a few female middle school students had been victims of sexual assault.

The study recommends students’ happiness should be the first priority and that society should lower academic pressure. It also suggests incorporating psychological assessments into articles of law in order to achieve a reduction in the amount of suicides.

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There is a perception that Chinese students are exhausted. Statistics show that Chinese elementary and secondary school students spend an average of 2.82 hours on their homework each day, three times longer than the global average.

Although Chinese education authorities have taken various measures to reduce the burden students faced in the past years, competition for getting into good schools, from elementary to college levels, is fierce.

At a press conference on the sidelines of the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress last month, Chen Baosheng, Minister of Education, pointed out that the reduction of pressure for students is not only an educational issue but also a social issue.