Education in Macau
Most of the schools in Macau are private or subsidized schools. There are only a few government or public schools, in which Portuguese is used as a medium of instruction or taken as a compulsory subject in Macau. A basic nine-year compulsory, free education, is offered to those students who have been enrolled in the schools which have met certain requirements stipulated by the government.
Moreover, the majority of the schools in Macau are so-called grammar schools, which offer language learning, mathematics, science subjects, social studies, etc. to the students. There are only a few vocational schools in Macau, offering technical subjects such as car repairing, electronics, electrical engineering, etc.
Regarding language learning in Macau, Chinese and English are offered in most of the schools. Portuguese is also taught as a subject in some schools in Macau. As Macau has become a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China in 1999, Mandarin or Putonghua is widely taught in most schools in Macau. Some other languages such as French may also be offered in a few schools.
It should be noted that Macau does not have its own universal education system for the time being. In this way, schools in Macau follow different educational systems that reflect their goals and visions. In general, there are three types of educational systems, namely, the Chinese educational system, the British educational system, and the Portuguese educational system.
In those schools adopting the Chinese educational system, students attend six years of schooling for their primary school education, up to primary 6, three years for junior secondary school education, and two years for senior high school education up to Form 5, and some schools up to Form 6. In their senior secondary school years, students are required to stream in science, commerce, or arts.
In those schools adopting the British educational system, students attend six years of schooling for their primary school education, three years for junior secondary school education, two years for senior secondary school education, and one to two years for their matriculation. Students in their senior secondary school years are required to stream in science, commerce, or arts. Furthermore, after the completion of their secondary school education, students are required to sit for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) directed by different educational boards in Britain such as the University of London or the Cambridge University.
In those schools adopting the Portuguese educational system, students attend four years for their basic education, five years for their junior secondary school education, and three years for their senior school education. Portuguese is used as a medium of instruction for most of the subjects. In recent years, English learning has been put into more focus. Moreover, with the return of Macau to China, the Portuguese schools, which originally followed strictly the curricula of the Portuguese educational system, plans to reform their curricula and incorporate Mandarin learning as a compulsory subject into their curricula.
In recent years, the Macau government has made an attempt to unify the educational system. In other words, it plans to standardize the number of years attended by students from different educational systems. However, such an attempt has not been well accepted by the educational circles, especially those from the schools that follow the British system.
There are more than ten higher-learning institutions in Macau. Some students choose to further their studies in the local universities or polytechnics whereas some others choose to further their studies in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, or some other places.
Higher-learning institutions include: