Analysis | UM professors voice opinions on Policy Address

Eleven academis from the University of Macau (UM) organized a seminar on Wednesday in which they voiced their opinions on the government’s Policy Address, which was delivered by Chui Sai On on Tuesday at the Legislative Assembly (AL). The UM speakers belong to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and to the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Yao Jingming, head of the Department of Portuguese at UM, started by praising the policy address, and then indicating that he considered the section regarding people’s livelihood to have been the key point of the address. The professor says that the cash handout is very attractive for Macau residents, although he thinks that this policy needs to be reviewed.

He proposed that “the cash handout is like chronic poisoning: once [people] get addicted to it, what can it [the government] do to solve the problem?” The academic further indicated a belief that if the government in the future decided to decrease the amount of the cash handout, or discontinue it, it might create animosity toward the government. “Money does not buy [lasting political stability]” remarked Yao.

In the address, the government once again pledged to train human resource staff who are fluent in both Chinese and Portuguese. However, the Chinese academic questioned whether the Macau government means to train local Portuguese-Chinese speaking human resource staff or people from greater China. Yao also pointed out that this specific detail is unclear and general.

Yao recommended the local government assign four or five middle schools to conduct bilingual education in Chinese and Portuguese. These schools should each become an affiliated school of UM, according to Yao. By doing so, the education system can provide Portuguese training service to those who want to be Portuguese-Chinese translators.

Agnes Lam, assistant dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, also praised the address in the chapter related to people’s livelihood. Lam expressed the opinion that the government is not supporting the cultural industry enough.

“This time, the diversification of the industries took an obvious spotlight in the address, […] it needs to have more policies to promote diversified industries,” said Lam.

In addition, Lam criticised the authority for not making it clear how will they will handle problems which have been a point of concern to the public in recent months, as well as for failing to provide any clear solution to problems such as the city’s traffic.

Kwan Fung, assistant professor of the Department of Economics, believes that this is still not the time for the city to judge whether Macau’s economy has already reached its weakest point. He suggests that two or three more months should be granted for the public to evaluate the city’s economic situation.