Gerakan Youth Secretary General Dr Dominic Lau is concerned with the repeating occurrence of suicidal cases taking place in schools. In the recent case involving a 15 year old Indian girl who attempted to kill herself from level 3 of the school, the girl was said to be unable to withstand the scolding from her teacher for not meeting up with expectations in her mathematic paper, however, she did not die after the jump and is sent to the ICU in the nearby hospital. Just two months ago, there was another suicidal case in Malacca where a 17 year old Chinese girl jumped off the building for not being able to cope with the fact that a person she loved did not feel the same way for her, unlike the Indian girl, the 17 year old died after the jump.

Dr Dominic says, parents normally expect their children to be safe in the school compound where they were accompanied by so many peers and under the guardian of school teachers. However, given the repetitious suicidal cases that took place in the educational institute, the safety of the school turns into a growing concern for parents.

Dr Dominic urge the principals and teachers to be more careful in the management of the school, especially schools with multi level storey buildings. If necessary, safety measures such as iron grill should be installed at the deck beside the walk way of the building and the opening of the windows should not be wide enough to fit one person.

Dr Dominic also says that school counselors should pay more attention to the problematic students, be it in terms of studies, family problems, attitude problems, personal problems etc. Extra care and concern is needed for this group of students to avoid them from committing any self destructive behavior. In order to allow counselors to carry out their duty at their best, it is important to not overload counselors with too much administrative jobs. Dr Dominic also finds that there is a need to increase the number of counselors in schools to meet the demand.

The role of a counselor is very important in the life of students who are undergoing their growing up stages where these teenagers are faced with various tensions from all corners of life. The Ministry of Education should give more training to the existing counselors as well as train more quality counselors to enable them to perform their duty at schools better. Counselors of various race and both genders are needed in a school to allow students of different background to express themselves comfortably in front of the counselor.

Dr Dominic added that school teachers should not put too much emphasis on the results and ignoring the other aspects of life of a student. Nevertheless, parents also has a role to play in preventing suicide of teenagers by showing more love and care to their children, parents should communicate more with their children to find out how they are coping with life and provide them with proper guidance so that they would see hope in life and not resort to ending their own life to escape reality.