The government aims to raise the number of higher education students from the current 36,000 by nearly 40 percent to 50,000 by 2025, the acting director of the Higher Education Bureau (DSES), Chang Kun Hong, announced at a press conference yesterday.
The press conference about the government’s tertiary education projects for the next decade was held on the DSED premises in Avenida do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues.
Chang said the government planned, for instance, to attract more students from Southeast Asia and Europe.
Currently, according to data released during the press conference, more than half of students enrolled in Macau’s 10 tertiary education institutions – comprising four public and six private ones – are non-locals, and 94 percent of the non-local students are from the mainland.
Chang said he believed that it was possible to increase the number of higher education students by 14,000 over the next five years. He urged local the tertiary education sector to enrol more non-local students.
Meanwhile, Chang also said the government would like the higher education sector to strengthen its courses in the areas of tourism management, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and microelectronics, apart from reinforcing Chinese-Portuguese bilingualism among its students.
According to data released during the press conference, more than 40 percent of Macau’s tertiary educationi students are enrolled in business and tourism management courses.
The government’s tertiary education sector development plan also aims to raise the share of master’s degree candidates among the total number of students to 33 percent by 2025.
Chang also said the government was adamant that patriotic education among higher education students needed to be strengthened, adding that Macau’s higher education institutions were also required to promote traditional Chinese culture and the national spirit.
