By Shuli Sudderuddin , Estelle Low and Teo Wan Gek

Cambodian student Sopheaktra Phann sometimes feels so lonely here that she just wants to drop everything and go home.

The bubbly 20-year-old, a business student at Singapore Management University (SMU), said it has not been easy to make friends as she feels that Singaporean students are not always friendly.

'Sometimes, when I'm alone in my room, I can get emotional and have thoughts about just quitting school and going home,' she said.

Ms Phann has lived here for five years. Previously, she studied at Anglo-Chinese Junior College.

She is not alone in feeling the blues here. A friend, another foreign student, was so lonely and homesick that at one point she stopped attending class and stayed in bed.

'I got very worried about her and had to check on her every day till she felt better,' Ms Phann said.

The pressure that foreign students face in coping with their studies and living in Singapore came under the spotlight a week ago.

An Indonesian student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, died on campus after falling four floors. Earlier, he had stabbed an associate professor during a discussion in the latter's office.

Widjaja, who had had his Asean scholarship revoked, cut off all communication with friends two weeks before his death.

A Ministry of Education spokesman said foreigners comprise about 20 per cent of the 49,000 students in the universities.

They make up about 4 per cent of the 521,000 students in primary and secondary schools, junior colleges and centralised institutes; and about 8 per cent of the 91,000 students in the polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education.

In a Sunday Times poll of 100 foreign students, 58 per cent said it was common to experience adjustment problems, ranging from stress over studies and finance to the language barrier.

National University of Singapore (NUS) computing student Zhang Shuai, 22, from China, said: 'I could not understand what the teacher was talking about for the first six months.

'Once, she asked me to do an assignment but I did not do it because I did not understand her instructions.'

On the financial concerns that foreign students may face, Mr Choi Kwan Bun, a 22-year-old Korean who is a physics student at NUS, said: 'I get a fixed allowance in Korean currency from my parents. So when the Singapore dollar rises, I have less.'

Counsellors and psychiatrists said it was not unusual for foreign students to experience problems in adjusting to life here.

Mr Timothy Hsi, a university counsellor at SMU, said half of his clients are foreign students.

'Issues like the language barrier may seem superficial but they are a worry to some foreign students.

'As a result of stress, we see students who engage in self-harm by cutting themselves or bingeing on alcohol. However, they are not the majority,' he said.

Dr Cecilia Soong, head of the counselling programme at SIM University, said students may feel guilt or shame if they cannot perform academically, or they may feel lonely or depressed if they cannot mix well with locals.

Some students might even drop out. An NTU spokesman said about 4 per cent of its foreign students have dropped out of school over the last three years. As for SMU, a spokesman said the number was confined to a few isolated cases. It has about 5,500 students, about 20 per cent of whom are foreign. NUS did not respond to The Sunday Times' query.

All universities and private schools contacted by The Sunday Times said they have counselling programmes and activities to help foreign students assimilate better.

For example, NUS, whose foreign students make up 20 per cent of the student body, has a team of counsellors, doctors and psychiatrists who work with staff and students.

Said Dr Ann-Marie Lew, head of counselling and psychological services at NUS' University Health Centre: 'Counsellors create awareness among the students about support services, as well as (hold) workshops for staff to help them identify students with difficulties.'

NTU has counsellors, medical professionals, mentors and supervisors who can be approached by students for help. In SMU, apart from its professional staff, there is a peer helper system in place.

However, even with such help on tap, things may not always fall neatly into place.

One second-year NTU student said he went for counselling when he was depressed and thought of cutting himself. However, he was told by counsellors that his problem might not be kept confidential as he was deemed to be in danger of self-harm.

Said the student, who declined to be named: 'Counselling is not enough. When they said they might need to tell others, I was not comfortable with that, and they lost my trust.'

Psychiatrist Ang Yong Guan, who sees three to four distressed foreign students a month, said in such cases, an intervention must be staged carefully without alarming the client.

'Depression has taken over his decision-making process, so you must intervene before he disappears and not come back. Or he might do something more sinister,' he said.

Another common problem: Many are ashamed to seek help.

'As Asians, we still believe that counselling must mean you have a problem. So there is a group of students who need help but don't seek it,' said SMU's Mr Hsi.

He added: 'We're slowly trying to change that by reaching out with peer helpers and I think it's working. Previously, students would not approach these peers but now they're becoming more open.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.