Hong Kong\u2019s education minister has said the surge in students diagnosed with mental illness partly reflects parents\u2019 growing acceptance and openness about the issue, while academic pressures, social lives and physical health also play a role.<\/p>\n
The remarks by Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin came after the Education Bureau revealed that the number of secondary school students suffering from mental illness had doubled over the past five academic years, from 660 in 2020-21 to 1,330 in 2024-25.<\/p>\n
In primary schools, the number of students diagnosed with mental illness also rose from 130 to 200 in the same period, a 54 per cent increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [parents] have now adopted an attitude which is more open and accepting; therefore, so it is not a sudden surge,\u201d Choi told lawmakers at a Legislative Council meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows the [government\u2019s] work has yielded some results, as parents are now willing to accept support services,\u201d she said, adding that schools would receive grants to help students with special needs, including mental illness.<\/p>\n
Choi conceded that parents in the past might have declined to admit that their children were mentally ill due to psychological pressures.<\/p>\n
She said the causes of mental illness were complex and not due to one single factor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s education minister has said the surge in students diagnosed with mental illness partly reflects parents\u2019 growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[199001,152740,134,4431,554,1602,555,199002,111,139,69,198747,198748,199003,199000,8911],"class_list":{"0":"post-383253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-christine-choi-yuk-lin","9":"tag-education-bureau","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-hong-kong","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mental-illness","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-neurosecretion","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-primary-schools","20":"tag-secondary-school-students","21":"tag-secretary-for-education","22":"tag-special-educational-needs","23":"tag-suicide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}