Author: Tayida Phanich
Editor: Ngan Le
Imagine being a Chinese high school student. Getting to school at 7:00 am, you sit through morning self study, then head off to your core subjects where stacks and stacks of worksheets that teeter off the edge of your table await. After 8 periods of this and some time for extracurriculars, you head off home but instead of going back to watch TV, you self-study. Some of your friends go to cram schools, where they study for the gaokao, the final test that determines what university they will get into. At 8:00 pm, you decide to complete your homework instead, chipping off from the pile work you received today. When the work is done, you go to sleep, only to repeat this arduous cycle over again for the next five days. With such a tedious schedule, it is not surprising to find that the pressure of this repetitive life has lead to such high suicide rates within students. In Japan, overall suicide rates are decreasing, except for in the student age group. With 599 young adults committing suicide in 2018, the value has increased by 6% from 2017. The rate of suicides was 5.3, the highest it has been in 40 years (Iwamoto). This trend is not only noticeable in Japan, China and India, but it is also regional. Additionally, Korean students have a higher than average suicide rates (World Population Review), as well as among southeast Asian students (ASEAN post), and in India, deaths reached an all time high with 10,159 suicides in 2018 (Garai).
How has this issue escalated into such a big problem? In South Korea, many suicides occur in November, when seniors take the Suneung, the entrance exam for universities. Many commit suicide because of their poor results, while some others even do it before their exams, worrying about poor scores and being unable to enter into university (Goh). Such pressure is prevalent in many Asian communities, and competition is fierce especially in schools. Teachers display test results to the whole school as a way to encourage hard work through shaming those who get worse scores, but this method also builds anxiety, pressure, and low self-esteem, leading students to doubt their abilities. Additional parental and educator expectations lead to the belief, “They must get the best grades. They need to get the highest honors. They have to do all these things to gain acceptance into the most elite colleges, where the whole process starts all over again.” (Counseling@NYU)
In Asian cultures, honor and collectivism is highly valued and many of these problems are overlooked. Students do not have a chance to express their concerns and anxieties in fear of being judged and shamed not just towards themselves, but to their whole family. There is a stigma to these emotions and to mental health in general. Thus, there are less resources and accessibility for outlets that students under pressure can look to as an alternative to taking such extreme measures.
However, on the bright side, there is some good news. More attention has been drawn to these numbers, and are causing a change in policies and the education system. Singapore has begun to remove exams from first and second grade levels and are working to do away with midterms up until eight grade after an 11 year old boy had committed suicide due to a bad exam score. Likewise, Japan has opened up opportunities for mental health discussions. In 2019, the government set up suicide prevention measures which included a consultation service that had consulers equipped with reaction guidelines and prevention procedures (Iwamoto).
We cannot pretend any longer that this pertinent problem does not exist. It does and will continue to unless more attention and care is given to revise these standards and offer more help to students in need.
Works Cited
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