LIFELONG LEARNING /EDUCATION POLICIES IN MACAO AFTER BECOMING SPECIAL ADMINITRATIVE REGION (S.A.R.) OF CHINA

Lawrence Tsui
Vice-President (Macao), East Asia Forum for Adult Education
President, Macao Association for Continuing Education

I. Macao S. A. R. Government Policies on Lifelong Education/Learning (2000-2004)

Macau S.A.R. was formally established on 20th December, 1999. But before that day, the first Chief Executive, Mr. Edmund Ho Hau Wah was the candidate to run for this position mentioned lifelong education in his policy on 'Education, Youth and Profession' that "....There is no age limitation for education, therefore S.A.R. Government should create conditions to develop adult education and training, so that lifelong education in Macao can be promoted and generalized. The culture of having the habit to 'read' should also be encouraged...."

At that time, three components of lifelong education were essential to Mr. Ho, namely, adult education , on-the- job training and the culture and habit to 'read'.

YEAR 2000

In early 2000, after Mr. Ho successfully won the election to become Chief Executive of Macau S.A.R. and formed his cabinet. His Secretary for Social and Cultural Affairs publicized the 2000 Education Policy that Macao S.A.R. .Government will "....enforce the development of higher education for adults and promote the concept of lifelong education. For this goal, special attention will be paid to the needs of continuing training and university level continuing education."

While in the 2000 Policy on General Education, it was written under the topic of ‘Direction for Development of Lifelong Education’ that "....relating to Lifelong Education, emphasis will be put upon planning, training and information provision of recurrent education and continuing/social education. At the same time, private sector will be encouraged to take initiative in this aspect."

Recurrent Education in Macao, defined by the Decree Law 32/95/M ,in fact is a flexible way similar to 'credit bank' for adults to earn recognized primary and/or secondary education standard. It is true that more higher education institutions were found or prepared since 2000. And a few more adult secondary schools were also established before or after the founding of S.A.R. to accommodate the sudden growth of adult students who were currently low-rank Government employees who used to be employed by former Portuguese Government, especially those employed by different departments of the security force who had only primary education standard.

YEAR 2001

In the abstract of 2001 Education Policy of Macao S.A.R. Government, it stated that "... In order to adapt to the needs of social development, education will take a further step towards an education system which is multi-channelized and lifelong oriented. We (MacaoGovernment) will : organize more courses on continuing education and higher education for adults; establish a better recurrent education system; try our best to eradicate illiteracy: upgrade the quality of vocational and special education."

Although there was nothing new in 2001 policy, the General Education Directorate had started to organize a small scale "Lifelong Education Day" in this year.

YEAR 2002

Inside the 2002 Policy Paper for the General Education System, there was an unique topic called "Resource Development on Lifelong Education". It stated that the government will, "... established a closer relationship with schools and associations to develop, open-up and utilize existing resources of lifelong education, especially on the resources of schools. Government will also: encourage more research and plan for the future lifelong education system of Macao; increase the opportunity for learning; establish more systematic and practical training mechanism; pay attention to the training of citizens on information, languages, communication and management. Through the multi-cultural and multimedia education activities, deepen citizens' knowledge on culture and art; promote health education; strengthen individual ability and actualize their potentiality. No matter whether educational activities are done through formal, non-formal or informal way, the purpose is to guarantee that they are better implemented for the purpose of upgrading citizens' ability, legal knowledge, environmental sensibility patriotism, community involvement, as well as global perspectives.. In order to attend these goals, we (government) will try our best to provide enough educational support and facilities; to publish a series of adult education material and research periodicals; encourage citizens to nourish the habit of lifelong learning; create conditions to actualize ‘Education for All’; prepare Macao to step towards a learning society which is healthy and enthusiastic ".

This is the first time MacaoGovernment to use such a long statement to describe so many different goals, purposes, aspects, methods and ways of lifelong education. In fact, some experts from Taiwanhad been contracted by the Macao government to help to establish ‘Indicators for Ability of Adult Educators’ for Macao ; the government periodical called ‘Lifelong Learning’ was also started to publish and the Lifelong Education Day had been prolonged to be a Lifelong Learning Week in this year.

YEAR 2003

For 2003,Higher Education Policy stated that " All higher education institutions will : push toward plans of lifelong learning, up-grade citizen's cultural and technical standard. MacaoUniversity (the government university), will explore to establish a School for Continuing Education...." All 3 government higher education institutions will continue to run the vocational-technical training courses: pay attention to the practicality of these training courses to meet the needs of the society. In order to upgrade citizen's culture and knowledge, all institutions will :develop relevant department, open a wide variety of courses and to encourage citizens' lifelong learning."

In the General Education Policy under the topic of ‘Development of Lifelong Education’, it was stated that "....In order to secure the orderly development of lifelong education in Macau, government will :use some mechanism of encouragement and regulating, to enrich the resource of lifelong education and guarantee the quality of lifelong education. For this purpose, government will provide venues to encourage newly set-up lifelong education institutions and will regulate the training activities for trainers in order to guarantee the quality of teaching and learning."

Obviously, MacaoGovernment had a better conceptual understanding of lifelong learning and the ‘Lifelong Learning Week’ held in this year had been expanded to include libraries, museums, youth centers, community centers and environmental information centers besides formal and non-formal educational institutions.

YEAR 2004

Government has recently proposed an outline for the 2004 Policy in It stated that :"Government needs a thorough review of Education System Law. Government will :aim at upgrading the knowledge and values of students, promote the culture and habit to ‘Read’....It is necessary to :integrate vocational aspects into lifelong education, construct Macao to become a Lifelong (Non-stop)LearningCity in order to upgrade the quality of education. Values like multiculturalism, tolerance, acceptance,....etc have to be maintained in Macao society. We need to generalized these values through education from nursery to university, and from basic to lifelong education."

In the Action Plan of 2004 Education Policy, it stated that:“ In order to let student get the fun of ‘reading’ and then nourish their habit of lifelong learning; plans like: ‘different generations read together’ and ‘teachers and students read together’ will be promoted.”

“On the other hand, indicators for Adult Educators will be used to train and professionalize adult educators in Macao. Macao Government in order to provide resource for lifelong learning of citizens….upgrade the quality of Macao citizens.”

Besides ‘Lifelong Learning Week’, a plan called ‘Lifelong Learning Award’(something similar to Taiwan’s ‘Lifelong Learning Passport’ was initiated in 2004 to encourage citizens to participate in more learning activities.

II. 2nd term Macao S.A.R. Government Policies on Lifelong Education/Learning Policies (2005 and 2006)

YEAR 2005

In 2005, there was nothingnew in the Education Policy related to Lifelong Education / Learning. But a more broad policy called ‘the Holistic Quality of Life’ was announced and a ‘Research Centre on Quality of Life’ was set up directly under the Chief Executive which would probably give a new light and approach to Lifelong Learning and / or Learning Society that the goals might possibly be promoted and coordinated by the Chief Executive himself instead of being only the goals of the educational sector.

It a matter of fact that when Mr. Edmund Ho ran for his 2nd term of Chief Executive in mid-2004 , he had put ‘upgrading the holistic quality of life of Macao citizen’ as important as ‘actualizing the mission of One Country Two Systems in Macao’. He said that : “ Macao economy has started to progress in a rapid way, but the living standard and quality of life cannot keep pace with this fast development…. If I can lead the Macao S.A.R. Government again in this new term, I shall work together with our citizens for upgrading their holistic quality of life.”

He tried to define ‘the Holistic Quality of Life’ to be “.... it relates closely with the indicators of liberal development…and at least it should include elements like : health, social welfare, culture, education, sport, city planning, condition of living, public transport, environmental protection…And level of civilization and social values are on the top of all these elements.”

He emphasized that : “The upgrading of the holistic quality of life of Macaocitizens needs the hard work of the whole society. Government will work closely together with NGOs to strengthen civic education, upgrade the cultural integrity of citizens, constructing social values like : patriotism, kindness, honesty, unity, mutual-understanding, enthusiasm…so that we can guarantee the growth of our new generation, as well as to guarantee the social stability and sustainable development of Macao S.A.R..”

In his policy on Education, Mr. Edmund Ho stressed that “…promote strongly Moral Education of students, including : personal integrity and civic consciousness; strengthen physical education and training, sot that students’ physical health, intelligence, mentality…etc can grow in a positive way…raise the self awareness and ability of adolescent so that they can resist the seduces of gambling, drugs and pornography. Give support to students who have difficulty to finish basic education as a way to protect their educational right…strengthen continuing education and the concept of (non-stop) lifelong learning, try best to create and construct a Learning Society.

This terminology‘Learning Society’ was the first time to be used in his document as well as in the S.A.R. Government though he did mention the term of Learning City’ before.

POLICY ADDRESS FOR YEAR 2006

On Nov. 22, 2005, Mr. Edmund Ho gave his Policy Address for the coming Year 2006. Unfortunately, the term ‘Lifelong Education / Learning’did not appear in anywhere of his address. For adult education, he emphasized that : “…to strengthen the element of foreign languages learning in the area of adult education, so that the usage of foreign languages can be generalized.”

‘the Holistic Quality of Life of Citizens’mentioned this time in the area of ‘Economic Development’ and emphasis was put upon nourishment of ‘competitive ability’instead of what he mentioned during his campaign for his 2m term. This time he said : “ In order to push forward our economy, we shall pay special attention on the quality and sustainability aspects of our economic development….try best to transform the results of economic development for the upgrading of citizens’ holistic quality of life.”

III. Existing legal documents that are still effective related to Lifelong Education/Learning

The first law on Education in Macao was passed in the year 1991 (Law 11/91/M). In Article No.3 of this Law, under ‘Principles of Education’, the second paragraph mentions that "The government will promote the development of adequate mechanism for an effective equality of opportunities on access and success of school education." and in Article No. 3 under 'Organizational Principles', the following two paragraphs also guarantee elements of lifelong learning:

Paragraph g) "Assure a schooling of second opportunity for those who did not fulfill the required education in their suitable age" and paragraph i) "Assume the application of Lifelong Education principles, give the total population the opportunity of having education, no matter whether through regular education channel or under non-formal education environment.

Article No.14 of this law is ‘Adult Education’ which defines the objectives of adult education to be "a) eradicate illiteracy and functional illiteracy; b) give educational opportunities for those who did not fulfill the required schooling in regular system; and c) promote civic education and activities of cultural nature."

In Article No.53, the law mentions that there should be ten supplementary Decree Laws to define more detail of the law and 'Adult Education' is one of this ten. This Decree Law (35/95/M) was publicized on July 17, 1995.

In the introduction of this Decree Law, it says: "Adult Education is for people who have passed the normal age to receive different levels of formal schooling..Under the perspective of lifelong education, adult education aims at increase the knowledge and develop the potentiality of the adults in order to complement or compensate what should be taught in school during their school age"."

This Decree Law covers only 1)compensation-oriented primary or secondary school courses for adult and 2) out-of-school continuing education for adults which can get exemption from formal education system. Making use of this Decree Law, Macao Government has already started flexible credit-earning way of primary and secondary education. Unfortunately, there has nothing proceeded in continuing education which can get exemption from formal education system.

In Between 2003 and 2004, Macao Government had prepared a draft to modify the existing Education Law. The draft proposes to use the term 'Continuing Education to include: 1) adult education ,2) recurrent education for adults, and 3) Non-formal education. This is a confusion and misusage of professional terms recognized by international world.

On the other hand, in the draft of the future Education Law, 'Education for All' and 'Lifelong Learning' both have been recognized as very important "General Objectives" of future Macao Education, yet there is nothing in the document about Family (or Parent) Education and Community Education and how they integrate with the existing School Education. In fact, Macao government did add "nourish children's interest to know and learn" as one of the objectives of Kindergarten Education as well as "upgrade different abilities of student, especially emphasis will be put upon students' role to learn, skill to learn, ability to think creatively and to solve problems." As one of the objectives of Primary Education .All these proposed objectives are aiming at the direction of lifelong learning society.

However, the modification of existing 'Education Law' is not yet finalized . There is still hope and space for adult and lifelong educators of Macao to persuade the Macao Government to correct or to add more necessary context in the Law for the future benefit of buildingMacau Lifelong Learning Society.

IV. Some personal comments and recommendation to the implementation of Law and Policies

Because of the influence of European Community, Macao Portuguese Government had a better understanding of Lifelong Education and had put related concepts into the Education Law of Macao in 1991. Also the Decree Law made in 1995 on Adult Education was also applicable to Macao actual situation in the 90s when the general population’s educational standard was rather low.

The new S. A. R. Government took over Macao on Dec. 20, 1999 and more or less inherit or follow some practice of the Portuguese Government . Lifelong Learning was hot in the educational sector and the new government tried to do something relevant. However, there might be some confusion between their understanding on ‘Lifelong Education’ and ‘Adult Education’ and sometimes they just treated them as similar thing and put them under the administration of one unit of the Education Department.

In late 2002 when the economy of Macao was rather bad, the government tried to use ‘learning culture and technique’ to be a tool to solve the problem of unemployment. Unemployed citizens just participated in the courses opened by the government and they can get an allowance which is almost equivalent to the salary of a non-skill worker in Macao at that time. Lifelong Learning was a good term to justify this action of the Government.

In 2003 and 2004, after the disaster of SARS, and the issuance of more licenses for casinos, Macao’s economy grew in a very fast way. Cost of real estate was up almost 100%, Government announced that Casino Industry had become the ‘Head Industry’ of Macao and suddenly there was not enough human resources for the ‘Industry’. With the attraction of high salary, many young people dropout from schools and join the Industry. Then the Chief Executive in 2005 threw out a new concept called “the Holistic Quality of Life of Macao Citizens’which aims at upgrade also the total human quality of Macao population.

With more and more pressure from the foreign investors that there is not enough skilled workers to fill the forthcoming vacancies of new hotels, convention centers and casinos. The Chief Executive seems put all his effort to Human Resource Development instead of building a Lifelong Learning Society.