EDUCATION | City U to start new semester on UM’s old campus

Alexis Tam speaks at this year’s graduation ceremony

The City University of Macau will move into the University of Macau (UM)’s old campus in Taipa in preparation for the upcoming semester. The university’s acting rector, Pang Su Seng, stressed that the faculty would make full use of the campus in order to enhance teaching quality.
The private institution was allocated eight buildings on the Taipa campus after UM’s relocation to Hengqin, including the previous Sino-Luso Building and the UM Cultural Center. It now rents an area of 37,644 square meters at that location and will open its new campus there in September.
The university held its graduation ceremony on Saturday which was attended by nearly 350 graduates. Mr Pang Su Seng said at the occasion that the new facilities, currently undergoing renovation, would facilitate improvements to the university’s teaching quality, and further, its contribution to academic research. Accordingly, he said that new laboratories would be launched and no space on campus would be wasted. “Teaching remains the most important part of our education policy. We will gradually increase our scientific research production while improving the quality of our education. Social service, of course, also remains a big part in our teaching,” said Pang on the sidelines of the ceremony.
Amongst the four tertiary education institutions and three government departments that were granted a share of UM’s old campus, City University is the only private institution. According to Pang, the school’s current site, located in NAPE, will continue to be used to accommodate educational courses.
The acting rector also revealed that the university will maintain its teacher-student ratio whilst gradually admitting more students. He said that the school currently employs over a hundred full-time and part-time professors for a student population of more than 4,000, where over 60 percent are locals. It plans to admit some 1,000 new students next year and gradually increase the student population to 6,000.
The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, delivered a commencement speech at the graduation ceremony where he stressed that the government is confident in its strategy to transform Macau into a world tourism and leisure hub; he thus appealed to the graduates to work hard and seize the opportunities that could come from the city’s transformation.