The 2024/2025 school year began yesterday, and Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) Director Kong Chi Meng said that the overall non-tertiary education student enrolment was at its peak this year, with about 89,000 students – or about 13 percent of the population – enrolled in 76 non-tertiary education institutions.
Speaking to public Chinese-language media broadcaster TDM and newspaper Macao Daily News yesterday morning on the sidelines of his inspection visit to Keang Peng School in Areia Preta district, Kong said that the total number of students enrolled in the city’s non-tertiary education institutions stood at about 89,000, mainly in the first and second years of junior secondary education, adding that due to the high birth rate in 2012 – 7,315 newborns – and the return of local students from elsewhere in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) for their further studies in Macau, the number of F1 students has increased by about 1,200 compared to the previous academic year.
Kong pointed out that, as cited by the two media outlets, the bureau has meanwhile coordinated with local schools to open nearly 30 extra classes at F1 level. He added that only about 10 students, due to their late enrolment in Macau, were yesterday still seeking a school place through interviews.
About 80 percent of non-tertiary education institutions started their academic year yesterday, according to Kong, who described the overall traffic and school conditions on Macau’s “first day back to school” as “generally smooth”, with DSEDJ officials having inspected a number of schools to ensure that the new school year got off to a trouble-free start, including newly opened schools, such as the new divisions of Pui Ching Middle School in Coloane and Pooi To Middle School in Taipa.
Concerning the low fertility rate which led to the decline in the number of students enrolled as K1 pupils, Kong said that the bureau has launched a capacity enhancement scheme to provide schools which are smaller in size or have difficulties in student enrolment with financial support to help them enhance both their hardware and software facilities, including teacher training, or in their transformation.
Meanwhile, according to a statement by the Transport Bureau (DSAT) yesterday, the city’s two public bus operators recorded over 117,000 passengers on 2,800 bus trips between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. yesterday, among which nearly 14,000 trips were made using student cards.
Avenida Dr Rodrigo Rodrigues, Avenida de Horta e Costa and Rua do Almirante Sérgio in the Macau peninsula as well as Avenida de Kwong Tung in Taipa were temporarily congested during the morning peak hours, but traffic was generally smooth, the bureau stated, urging teachers, students and parents to plan their trips early, use public transport as far as possible and travel at staggered times, as well as to avoid aggravating pressure on road traffic by making good use of the pick-up and drop-off zones around their respective schools and not parking their private vehicles indiscriminately.
Students and their parents crowd the entrance to Santa Rosa School (Chinese Section) in Zape yesterday, the first day of the 2024/2025 academic year. – Photo: MPDG
