Survey Finds Many Students Consider Skipping School
On.cc · 1 SOURCESabout 2 hours ago2 MIN
Summary
A Hong Kong social service group has reported widespread warning signs in secondary students’ willingness to attend school, with many saying academic stress has pushed them toward thoughts of truancy or dropping out. The survey also found a notable gap between students’ self-rated ability to cope with stress and the harmful ways some said they actually respond.
Key Points
- The Life Education Working Group under Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service released the survey findings on Wednesday, after collecting 695 valid questionnaires from secondary students between January and March this year.
- The survey found 37.6% of respondents had thought about skipping school or dropping out, while 18.1% said they had actually missed school at least once because of academic pressure.
- Students identified their top pressure sources as unsatisfactory grades, heavy schoolwork and being unable to keep up with learning progress, which were linked to procrastination, mood swings and poor concentration.
- Although 76.3% rated themselves able to handle stress, 45.5% within that group said they coped by avoiding problems, and 30.9% said they relieved pressure through self-harm.
- A 15-year-old Form Four student using the pseudonym Lucy said bullying and isolation in Form One led to depression and self-harm, and by the first term of Form Three she had missed more than 80 days of school.
Why It Matters
The findings suggest school attendance problems are tied not only to discipline or study habits, but also to mental health, peer relationships and whether students feel they belong on campus. Lutheran Queen's Hill Integrated Service Centre unit supervisor Ip Man-lung said 88.3% of students saw meeting good friends as a motivation for going to school, and urged schools to strengthen peer-support training and work more closely with welfare groups to support absent students.