Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon, who is also the spokesman for the government’s Executive Council (ExCo), announced on Friday that the advisory body has completed its discussion of a government-drafted regulation according to which starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the government will merge three educational subsidy programmes into the free education subsidy programme.
The regulations will come into force on September 1 this year.
According to Cheong, the three subsidy programmes are the government’s subsidy for special education classes, subsidy for vocational and technical education, and subsidy for classes with optimised teacher-to-class ratio or teacher-to-student ratio.
Cheong said that the three subsidy programmes have been paid to schools over the past years. He clarified that the government’s total budget for education will not be increased, while the financial support for schools will not be reduced.
According to Cheong, the new measure aims to rationalise the deployment of financial resources for education, simplify the processing of subsidies and enhance administrative efficiency.
With the declining birth rate, some schools in Macau may not be able to meet the minimum enrolment size limit for small classes, and as a result, the subsidy received by schools may not be sufficient to meet their needs, Cheong said. Therefore, he said the government has set up a subsidy programme to provide additional financial support to eligible schools, in order to support their operations and development.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon (right) and Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) Acting Director Iun Pui Iun look on during Friday’s Executive Council press conference at Government Headquarters.
– Photo courtesy of TDM
