Thousands of Hong Kong children tried to kill themselves during the last school year, according to a survey by the Department of Health.

The department said it assessed 233,000 primary school pupils and 97,000 secondary school students, looking at their growth, vision, hearing, psychosocial health and behaviour.

The department said 2.8 percent of the children reported thinking about committing suicide in the last academic year, while 1.3 percent – or almost 4,300 – said they actually attempted to take their own lives.

A psychiatry professor from the Chinese University, Sandra Chan, said the resumption of face-to-face classes after the pandemic had led to increased emotional stress among students.

"You can easily see that in the real-world situation when students' academic demands are rising, especially in the post-Covid [era] and when schools actually are catching up on the schedule and the curriculum that they have missed in the past few years... You can imagine the kind of adjustment coupled with academic stress," she said.

Chan added that more needs to be done to make mental health services more accessible.

"There must be some multi-level collaboration to prioritise mental well-being as part of the core education initiative, so that will help our family and students address their needs and use the resources available. The priority really is to have policies at school level, at health care level to make these resources accessible and trusted."

Meanwhile, the health survey also found a deterioration in students' eyesight in recent years, especially among lower grade primary pupils. Fifteen percent of primary one students had to wear corrective lenses, four percentage points higher than in the 2019/20 school year.

The assessment also found that 20.5 percent of secondary school students were overweight, as were 19.5 percent of primary school pupils.

"During the Covid-19 epidemic, class suspension, online classes, decreased outdoor physical activity, together with increased screen time, all imposed higher risks of overweight or obesity and deteriorated vision," the department said.