In response to a written interpellation by lawmaker Alan Ho Ion Sang regarding the impact of Macau’s declining birth rate on the education sector, the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) has noted that the class-teacher ratio at local kindergartens has shifted from 1:1.6 in the 2011/2012 school year to 1:2.3 in 2024/2025, with the teacher-student ratio improved from 1:16.7 to 1:11.7, emphasising that small class education focuses not only on reducing class sizes but also on adapting teaching methods and addressing students’ social development needs.
According to a statement issued by DSEDJ Director Kong Chi Meng last month, most local early childhood education entities offer various services to support parents and students, including supervised classes, after-school care, school bus services, and lunch programmes, adding that the current class-teacher and teacher-student ratios facilitate the effective deployment of teaching staff members to meet the diverse educational needs of children, allowing schools to better support their care and learning.
“The special administrative region (SAR) government is currently encouraging schools to hire more teachers to enhance class teacher ratios through the additional amount for free education subsidies and the education fund for optimising class teacher ratios under the [government’s] school development assistance scheme,” Kong was quoted by the statement as saying.
He underlined that that the bureau has consistently monitored changes in the demand for school places in Macau due to fluctuations in birth rates and the school-age population. Among others, the bureau has been attentive to the needs of schools of varying sizes in response to recent trends in birth rate changes. Simultaneously, it has invested additional resources in certain schools to support their optimisation or transformation efforts, aimed at enhancing teaching quality and developing their operational characteristics.
The statement indicates that in the future, the bureau will organise professional team visits to schools and provide subsidies through the Education Fund to assess their operating environments. It will also utilise diverse publicity channels to help parents better understand the unique characteristics of different schools.
The bureau stressed its commitment to coordinating the provision of school places and class arrangements among schools on the basis of demand analyses relating to school size, enrolment targets, population and availability of school places, making use of the flexible mechanism to allow a class size of 25 to 35 students, while assisting schools in optimising their class planning according to their individual circumstances.
The written reply was released by Ho to the media on Tuesday.
This photo taken yesterday shows parents and guardians picking up their kids from a kindergarten in San Kio district. – Photo: Yuki Lei
