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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, at a media session today (March 10) after attending an urgent meeting on student suicide cases with representatives of secondary school principals and guidance teachers, academics, parent representatives and educational psychologists:
Reporter: Mr Secretary, was that a productive meeting for you and are there any measures that can be enacted right now to help the students at school?
Secretary for Education: Thank you for the question. As I said, I started the session by thanking all the members who had been given very short notice just about two days ago when I said I would really need an urgent meeting with them and then they just promised to come and they are here this evening spending their time and showing their commitment to the subject. We covered quite a number of areas, including as a broad understanding by individual attendants of the meeting, how they see the problem, what sort of information they have captured, so it was a very good sharing of the information to understand the problem in a total, holistic view in the first place.
We believe that it is very complex issue. It is not only one or two problems causing the challenge and we believe this is a complicated problem needing a very holistic view. That is why right away I have decided, with the support of the Chief Executive and the Chief Secretary, that we are going to form a committee to work closely and diligently on the subject. And I mentioned about this committee and the composition and we would spend time and try to identify appropriate members for that particular committee, but definitely we will include representatives of the schools and institutions and then the parents' groups' representatives and then professional institutions and other related departments' representatives as well, to demonstrate that. And that would be on a short-term basis.
And we believe that some of the feedbacks given by the school sector, we will listen to them, in particular the need for additional expertise and resources right away for the education psychologists and professional counsellors. So we are building a team. We are going to launch five particular district-based seminars, four for the schools and one for parents, as an example to start it off. I am sure a lot more will be coming forward. These will be for the immediate measures. As for the short- and medium-term solutions and issues, I would ask the committee to come back within six months and then for the full recommendations and analysis to the Secretary for Education, and if there are sufficient findings and discussions, I would encourage as well an interim report because this is something all of us would attend to and have a lot of concerns with.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, March 10, 2016
Issued at HKT 20:53
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