Scholars concern over UM’s ‘absorption into mainland’

Academics have expressed concerns that Macau’s public higher education institution conforms to the agenda to “accelerate Macau’s absorption into mainland China.” They are also apprehensive that the Chinese language has become the more dominant working language at the institution, despite English being the official language of instruction.

As cited in a report issued by the Times Higher Education, professors fear that the fast-paced changes reportedly occurring in at the University of Macau (UM) will compromise the mission of the university, which identifies itself as the bridge between the East and West. 

Zhidong Hao, a professor emeritus of sociology at the university who has been in the US for four years, noted that “academic freedom was further eroded when the administration changed guard and the rectors are more likely to be recruited because of their pro-government credentials,” as cited in the report. 

According to the professor, the move echoes the “general political climate in mainland China and Hong Kong.”

Back in 2018, rector of UM, Professor Yonghua Song, pledged when he was first appointed as rector that he would act in accordance with the principle of academic freedom, one of the university’s core values.

Since that time, Song has dismissed old rumors regarding scholars being discouraged from discussing political issues, particularly regarding mainland China, saying that academic freedom is part of the charter of the UM, and that in any faculty, the university needs to abide by the charter which is the law of the university.

Meanwhile, Macau’s border has been closed to foreign arrivals since March 2020, to slow the spread of Covid-19.

It was only recently that Macau started to relax its strict entry measures by launching a special entry scheme established by the government, to allow foreign teachers into Macau to meet the needs of local schools.

In the report, according to a current employee who refused to be identified, foreign professors and postgraduates have allegedly been replaced by Chinese ones at “an accelerating rate” since the onset of the pandemic in 2020,

“The university now mirrors the city with its absence of foreigners,” said the employee in the report. 

“Although English is still the university’s official language of instruction, Chinese has now become the dominant working language and the effort to remain multilingual has been forgotten against the background of the clear agenda to accelerate Macau’s absorption into mainland China,” the employee added.

Echoing the same sentiments, another academic who left the university during the pandemic recalled that several administrative meetings that used to be held in English are now held in Chinese, which “automatically blocks international academics [from participating] unless they speak Chinese very well.”

Another concern was the charge that staff were not always free to raise their opinions on university strategy, and that professors are allegedly resigned to “a lack of accountability for decisions concerning everything from promotion to teaching load distribution.”

“There were outspoken people who were not promoted, so there was a sense that one would be rewarded if one would just passively sit in meetings and not ask questions of a more critical nature,” the former professor said in the report. 

Although the source has admitted that the public university did not interfere in his teaching materials nor his research when he was still at the UM, a current employee admitted that there are policies implemented by the university which are “are suddenly changed and applied retrospectively – something that happens with increasing frequency.” 

Rui Paulo da Silva Martins, UM vice rector for global affairs, told the Times Higher Education that the public institution is continuing to pursue global collaborations, adding that “internationalization has been a strong characteristic of UM.”