Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) Higher Education Department Chief Carlos Roberto Xavier said yesterday that the number of higher education students this academic year stands at about 49,000, including over 600 international students, most of them from Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs).
Xavier did not elaborate further on the composition of the international student body in Macau.
DSEDJ Higher Education Exchange and Cooperation Division Chief Fong Ka Kin pointed out that more targeted promotion activities, such as online seminars and exhibitions, will be carried out by the bureau in conjunction with the city’s tertiary education institutions, both online and offline, to attract more non-local students to study in Macau, adding that due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has been affecting Macau for over two years, the publicity campaigns outside Macau by local colleges and universities were mainly based on online promotion.
In the future, Fong said, the bureau will also strengthen relations with higher education institutions in other regions and countries, and promote local tertiary education institutions through social media platforms.
Both made the remarks during a press briefing after the government-appointed Education Committee’s first plenary meeting at the bureau.
The Education Committee, which was set up last month by merging the Non-Tertiary Education Committee and the Tertiary Education Committee.
Luís Gomes, chief of the DSEDJ Non-Tertiary Education Department, pointed out that the setting up of the Education Committee aims to coordinate the linkage of higher education and non-tertiary education policies and the integration of resources, and also to create a platform to better integrate and receive the opinions of experts and front-line educators concerning the integration of student career planning, higher education curricula, and college counselling.
Meanwhile, DSEDJ Secondary Education Division Chief Leong I On said that the Seac Pai Van Vocational and Technical Education Activity Centre, which got off the ground in the fourth quarter of 2020, consists of different functional areas, such as an international cooking area, which enable senior high schools that offer vocational and technical courses to provide “relatively professional and well-equipped” teaching and to conduct “simulated practical teaching”.
Leong noted that as of last month, the centre had carried out more than 650 programmes in language and vocational education, involving nearly 20,000 person-times. Leong added, so far about 200 different types of experience courses have been conducted in conjunction with universities, institutions, and associations that have enabled non-higher education students to make early career plans by gaining practical experience.
The Education and Youth Development Bureau’s (DSEDJ) Secondary Education Division Chief Leong I On (from left to right), Non-Tertiary Education Department Chief Luís Gomes, Higher Education Department Chief Carlos Roberto Xavier and Higher Education Exchange and Cooperation Division Chief Fong Ka Kin look on during yesterday’s press conference after the first plenary meeting of the government-appointed Education Committee at the bureau. – Photo: Yuki Lei
