Legislator José Maria Pereira Coutinho sent a written interpellation to Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U last Wednesday regarding certain issues raised by students of the Macao Polytechnic Institute’s (MPU) Bachelor of Arts in Music.
According to the interpellation, the students, numbering over 100, enrolled in the programme with the promise of “one-on-one” instruction by part-time or full-time instructors in piano and vocal courses, leading them to pay high tuition fees in pursuit of significant professional growth.
The Macau Post Daily interviewed on Monday a female student surnamed Lin, who is currently studying in the music department. The interview was held on the MPU campus in Zape.
Lin stated that the university recently informed its students that the “one-on-one” teaching arrangement could no longer be maintained due to a 50 percent cut in government funding. Instead, the class structure would shift to “one-to-two” for sophomores and “one-to-four” for junior students, while the total number of piano teaching hours per semester would be reduced from 14 to 7.
Lin said that the “one-to-multi” teaching arrangement would have a detrimental effect on the students’ learning and that only a “one-on-one” arrangement could guarantee the quality of teaching, especially for students with different skill levels, styles, and techniques. Lin said that she and her peers were shocked by the decision of the Faculty of Arts and Design, especially as the university had recruited more students in the department for the upcoming semester and was still advertising a “one-on-one” teaching arrangement despite the internal policy change.
Lin also said that all piano and vocal courses were now taught exclusively by part-time teachers, contrary to the university’s original promise that students could freely choose their teachers including full-time ones. She raised concerns that the sudden reduction in teaching hours and the departure from personalised instruction would leave students feeling uncertain about the quality of their education, particularly as their tuition fees would remain unchanged. This was especially true for mainland students paying much higher tuition fees than their local counterparts, Lin pointed out.
In his interpellation, Coutinho urged the government to investigate the sudden reduction in teaching hours and to address the changes in the “one-on-one” teaching model, decreased course hours, and reliance on part-time teachers. The veteran lawmaker-cum-unionist also called for concrete measures to be taken to remedy the situation and ensure the quality of education for the affected students.
This photo taken on Monday shows the Macao Polytechnic University (MPU) campus in Zape. – Photo: William Chan
