Expulsion of students

a. EDB disapproves of the practices of some schools which advise students to leave school voluntarily and is of the view that such practices are educationally undesirable. They defeat the purposes of providing schools with various resources to promote education for all abilities and to provide free and universal basic educational opportunities for all children, including children with diverse needs, up to junior secondary level.

b. Students admitted into the primary course (P1-P6), junior secondary course (S1-S3) and the senior secondary course (S4-S6) should normally be allowed to complete that course. No primary student or junior secondary student aged under 15 years should be expelled without proper warning and notice to parents and without the approval of PSEd. No senior secondary student should be expelled without proper warning and notice to parents and PSEd should be kept informed of all such cases at the warning stage.

c. If the school head is contemplating the expulsion of a student, every effort must be made to interview the parents. A warning letter shall be sent to the parents or guardians and at the same time a full report shall be submitted to PSEd for his/ her consideration.

d. Students must not be expelled solely on the ground that they are academically weak.

e. No student should be considered for expulsion except on grounds of:

 a repeated breach of school discipline after reasonable measures to enlist the co-operation of parents have proved unsuccessful ; or

 non-payment of fees printed on the fees certificate.

【Note: SMCs and school heads are expected to investigate the circumstances and, if they are convinced that the non-payment is genuinely deliberate, to inform PSEd accordingly before expelling the student. This applies to all students, whether they are subject to universal basic education or not.】

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Understanding Suicidal Behaviours 1. Categories of suicidal behaviours:

a. Suicidal ideation: Any self-reported thoughts or fantasies about engaging in suicide-related behaviours.

b. Suicide threat: Any action, verbal or non-verbal, expressing a self-destructive desire to others, but does not result to a real self-harmful act.

c. Suicide attempt: A non-fatal outcome for which there is evidence (either explicit or implicit) that the person believes at some level that the act would cause death. Attempted suicides include acts by persons whose determination to die is thwarted because they are discovered and resuscitated effectively, or the chosen method is not lethal.

d. Suicide death: Someone takes his or her own life with conscious intent by lethal means, for example, jumping from height, hanging, poisoning.

2. Schools can refer to “A Resource Handbook for Schools: Detecting, Supporting and Making Referral for Students with Suicidal Behaviours” for information on early detection of students with suicidal risk (including identification of protective factors, risk factors and warning signs of suicidal behaviours). The handbook is accessible from the EDB website for school personnel’s reference.

Handling Cases with Suicidal Risk

3. If students are suspected to have suicidal risk, schools should arrange school guidance personnel (for example, Student Guidance Teacher/Student Guidance Personnel or School Social Worker) promptly for support. If necessary, schools should solicit professional support from the school-based educational psychologist, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, medical and/or police officers to ensure that appropriate intervention measures will be taken.

4. The Dos and Don’ts in handling suicidal behaviours are:

Dos

a. do take seriously every suicidal ideation, threat or act;

b. do be willing to listen and understand the problems, showing care;

c. do ensure the student’s safety, take away objects that may cause injury;

d. do contact parents/ guardians and request their prompt presence at school;

e. do stay with the student until the crisis is over;

f. do ensure that trusted adults/relatives are around to share his/ her feelings and facilitate possible alternatives;

g. do refer the student to specialized helping professionals with parental consent, e.g. school social workers, school-based educational psychologists, clinical psychologists and medical officers as deemed appropriate; and

h. do keep close contact with the parent, conduct continuous assessment and follow-up on the mental health condition of the student.

Don’ts

a. don’t underestimate any suicide threat and the seriousness of its consequence;

b. don’t criticise or challenge, e.g. by saying “go ahead and do it”;

c. don’t argue with the student about whether he should live or die;

d. don’t assume that given time students can cope with stress and pain by themselves; and

e. don’t glorify the suicidal behaviors.

5. Should a student display abnormal emotional or behavioural reactions at school, before professional assistance is available, people around can help to stabilize the student’s emotions but they themselves should keep calm and assess the situation carefully. In case there are students having serious injury or in a life-threatening situation; or situation requiring immediate support, schools should activate its Crisis Management Team and take appropriate actions promptly, including dialing 999 for emergency assistance. For details, please refer to Section 3.4.2.

Handling Suicide Death Cases

6. School heads should report promptly to their respective SSDOs of all student suicide death cases which come to their knowledge through calls from parents, classmates, teachers or through the police and the media. The school concerned should promptly activate its Crisis Management Team to assess the impact, formulate a crisis management plan and take appropriate measures in response to the critical incident.

7. Other students may be affected psychologically by a suicide incident. Schools should solicit support from their Student Guidance Officer/Student Guidance Teacher/Student Guidance Personnel or School Social Worker or Educational Psychologist to provide them with aftermath services. The school can refer to

“School Crisis Management: Handbook of aftermath intervention and psychological support (Applicable to injury and death of students and staff)” for information on impact assessment, crisis aftermath intervention and psychological support. When a crisis is over, the school should conduct an evaluation on the effectiveness of its crisis management work and adopt appropriate precautionary measures to prevent recurrence of similar incidents in the future.

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To enhance students’ awareness of the detrimental effects of taking drugs (including psychotropic substances) and help them stay away from drugs, schools are advised to strengthen anti-drug education. Schools should take seriously the severe harm caused by psychotropic substances such as cannabis, “Ketamine”, “ICE”,

“Cocaine” and “Ecstasy” and traditional drugs such as heroin to the physical and mental well-being of youths. In view of the growing trend of hidden youth drug abuse and the unapparent harmful effects on the body at the early stage of drug abuse, it increases the difficulties of teachers in early identification and provision of assistance to students. Schools may refer to EDBC002/2010 “Healthy School Policy” to formulate a school-based Healthy School Policy with an anti-drug element to institutionalize a drug-free school culture. For details of the policy, please browse the

“Healthy School Policy” webpage of the EDB. The policy should include the following features:

a. appoint an experienced member of staff with overall responsibility for all health issues within the school;

b. ensure school members are aware of and support the Healthy School Policy;

c. review the school-based Healthy School Policy regularly and evaluate effectiveness for improvement;

d. develop a school-based anti-drug education programme to enrich students’

knowledge, skills and values conducive to adopting a healthy lifestyle;

e. adopt a whole school approach to anti-drug education by integrating anti-drug messages into the school curriculum; of which teaching objectives should include correcting students’ misconceptions about drugs, and supporting students with guidance services;

f. promote a caring school atmosphere that facilitates students’ healthy growth and development of positive values;

g. arrange anti-drug education activities for parents to strengthen their anti-drug knowledge and skills for identifying drug abuse children;

h. encourage, support and arrange teachers to attend relevant training so as to update their knowledge and skills of anti-drug education;

i. proactively communicate with the professional organisations (including government and non-governmental organisations at Appendix 3) in order to arrange for the anti-drug education activities and counselling service; and

j. draw up clear guidelines/ protocols and procedures on internal sharing of information in order to identify students who may need help and putting in place a referral system.

To help schools formulate a Healthy School Policy with an anti-drug element, the Action Committee Against Narcotics, Narcotics Division of the Security Bureau and the EDB have commissioned the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups to produce

an Anti-drug Resource Kit for Schools. For details, please browse the “Anti-drug Resource Kit for Schools” webpage of the Security Bureau. Besides, we encourage schools to upload the Healthy School Policy documents onto their school website for stakeholders’ reference.