Lawmaker Pang wants more mainland students in local universities

University students from the Mainland should come to Macau universities to study instead of going abroad to “non-friendly countries,” lawmaker Pang Chuan said on Tuesday at the Legislative Assembly.

For the lawmaker and vice president of the Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau would be a better option for mainland Chinese students as many are currently studying in countries like Australia, the UK, and the USA.

“Currently over 100,000 students from mainland China are studying in Australia, over 200,000 in the UK, and some 300,000 in the United States. Instead of studying in countries that are not friendly, they can do it in Macau as we can welcome more mainland students to receive quality teaching and, at the same time, support Macau’s social and economic development,” Pang said calling on the Chief Executive (CE) to negotiate with mainland authorities to allow more students to attend the local universities.

In his response, CE Ho Iat Seng noted that although he agrees, and has in the past three years encouraged the local universities to develop towards what he called the “Industrialization of the university sector,” he said that the priority of the local universities, namely the public ones, should cater to local students, similar to access to the job market.

“Not only jobs are reserved for locals, but vacancies in higher education institutions are also reserved for local students,” he said, adding that the quota established for 2021 for the public universities may be increased from the maximum ceiling from 25% to 30% of non-local students, due to the expansion in the size of the institutions.

As for the private universities, they are already enjoying an increase from 50% to 60% of their quota of non-local students from the 2018-2019 academic year.

Ho also agreed that students coming from the Mainland into Macau can also contribute to the development of tourism as well as other activity sectors, promising to keep close contact with central authorities on the possibility of expanding the market for tertiary education.