Report highlights changes to technical education

Following a 40-day public consultation in June and July last year, the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) has issued a report on changes it intends to implement in the technical and vocational education field.

According to the report, the public consultation gathered a total of 298 opinions and highlighted six main topics in which the government should act to boost the technical and vocational education system and to make it useful and adaptive to the needs of the job market.

A statement issued by DSEJ notes that several measures should be implemented, including raising awareness about this type of education to more students and their families as well as the job opportunities that are created by it. In addition, adjustments could be enforced over time in order to keep the system effective and support the needs of the job market.  Integration with higher education should be established, allowing an easy and smooth transition from the technical and vocational system to tertiary education.

Another measure that needs to be implemented, according to DSEJ, is to raise the professional level and recognition of technical and vocational education to be at the same level as secondary education so as to remove the existing stigmatization that causes it to be less favored.

The report also mentions the need to elevate the effectiveness of internships, enrich students’ experiences, more “hands-on” and practical workplace situations, which would allow students to network and make it easier for a full-time job placement after the internship concludes.

The report does not propose any concrete measures which the government will enforce and does not establish any precise time frame for the promotion of such changes in the current system, noting only that such work “should be done in compliance with both the “10-year Plan for the development of the Non-tertiary Education 2011-2020”, as well as the “Five-year plan” for Macao Development (2016-2020),” which is only a theoretical “declaration of intentions.”