The University of Macau (UM) announced in a statement yesterday that the UM Macao Base for Primary & Secondary STEM Education (UM Faculty of Science and Technology) was included in the first batch of 2021-2025 national science education bases, making it Macau’s first university on the list.
The statement did not say how many national science education bases the first batch comprises.
The statement noted that the base was set up in conjunction with various entities such as UM and the Science and Technology Development Fund, the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ), and the Chinese Educators Association of Macau.
The base offers continuous training for teachers and students from local secondary schools and provides STEM programmes to support the promotion of science in the city, both of which are done using UM’s Centre for Science and Engineering Promotion as a crucial component and resources from the university’s state key laboratories and research platforms, the statement underlined.
STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
According to the statement, science is promoted by the base by also cooperating with “all strata of society”, with the base already having organised various activities including summer camps, outreach programmes, the Liaison Professor to High School Project, science training workshops for teachers in primary and secondary schools, and a Bank of China (BOC) sponsored technological innovation competition, among others.
The statement pointed out that the base’s inclusion in the first batch of 2021-2025 national science education bases by the China Association for Science and Technology is a “testament to the central government’s recognition of UM’s efforts in science popularisation”.
The public university emphasised that it will increase “quality science and technology resources” as well as offer more public services moving towards the goal of promoting science education.
This undated handout photo provided by the University of Macau (UM) yesterday shows a part of the University of Macau (UM) Macao Base for Primary & Secondary STEM Education (UM Faculty of Science and Technology).
