The Coordinator of the Tertiary Education Services Office (GAES) said that the alleged requirement for academics at the University of Macau (UM) to report their activities while on trips to Taiwan is normal if the trip is work related.
Denying that this requirement constitutes a violation of academic freedom, Sou Chio Fai argued that the university and its academics should report who they meet and what they plan to do when in Taiwan as the trips are financed by the government.
“According to the current law of tertiary education, we [GAES] respect all educational freedom in every higher education institution in Macau,” he said, as cited by public broadcaster TDM.
“I think, as a public service and as any entity that has the support of public funds, when organizing official missions, they have to indicate with which entities or people they will meet. This is a normal practice [and] has nothing to do with educational freedom or an investigation.”
The statement comes in response to allegations of diminishing academic freedom at the UM, first raised by Professor Hao Zhidong.
Hao, who is leaving the UM, claimed that the education institution was requiring its staff report on any visit to Taiwan, including personal trips outside the purview of the UM. Questioned by the Times on the matter, the university declined to comment.
However, the GAES coordinator has rejected the idea that academics would need to make the same reports when traveling for personal reasons. “I am not aware of these rules [to report the itinerary of a personal trip] in any public service,” he said.
Citing an unnamed source, Hoje Macau reported last week that these requirements were not initiated by the UM itself, but had been imposed on it by an undisclosed government department.
