The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) said in a statement yesterday that it expects Macau’s schools to have 85,014 pupils when the new school year 2020/21 starts next month, a 2.8 percent increase from the 82,683 pupils in the previous school year.
According to the statement, kindergarten, primary school and secondary school pupils are expected to reach 19,200, 36,220, 28,756 respectively in the upcoming school year, representing a 0.8 percent, 4.9 percent and 2.8 percent increase respectively from the previous school year.
The total number of pupils also includes special needs education pupils and those enrolled in recurrent education.
Macau’s 15-year basic education comprises four educational stages, namely kindergarten, primary, junior secondary and senior secondary classes.
According to the statement, the number of teaching staff is expected to be 8,038 in the new school year, a 0.1 percent increase from the 8,029 in the previous school year.
According to the statement, teaching staff for kindergarten, primary and secondary classes are expected to reach 1,419, 2,800, 3,120 respectively in the upcoming school year, representing a 1.9 percent growth, 3.6 percent increase and 3.4 percent decrease respectively from the previous school year.
The total number of teaching staff also includes those in special needs education classes, recurrent education classes, as well as those who teach in more than one educational stage.
Patriotic education base
Meanwhile, the statement also underlined that the bureau is striving to set up a patriotic education base in December.
The bureau said last month that the patriotic education base is being set up at the Macau Handover Gifts Museum in Nape and expected to come into use by the end of this year.
Yesterday’s statement pointed out that the patriotic education base will be a venue featuring exhibitions, training and multimedia and audiovisual displays. The statement also said that the bureau plans to launch a patriotic education programme for pupils, with the base as the primary venue combined with various teaching resources and materials, with the aim of enabling them to learn more about the history and socioeconomic development of the nation and Macau in a “lively” way.
