Universities to resume with final year students prioritized

Six local higher education institutions are to resume classes on April 1, the head of the Department for Tertiary Education Institution Coordination of the Higher Education Bureau (DSES), Teng Sio Hong, has informed.
According to Teng, the higher education institutions will resume classes in phases, with priority given to the students in the final year of their programs.
“After a meeting we had with all institutions, we agreed that in the phase the most important is that assure that all finalist students can conclude their study programs so we do not harm those students’ intentions to continue their studies or to access the job market,” Teng said.
The official noted that the higher education institutions had agreed that four kinds of students should be prioritized as classes resume: finalists, local students in courses which require internships, those with laboratory work or other classes that demand a physical presence, and finally those that need to present a final dissertation or thesis.
For these students, classes should resume on April 1, Teng said, noting that the indicated date is the “earliest possible, being up to the institutions to decide on the concrete date for the resumption of each course.”
The six institutions that will restart on April 1 are the Macao Polytechnic Institute, the Institute for Tourism Studies, the Macau Security Forces Training College, the University of Saint Joseph, the Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau and the Macau Institute of Management.
The DSES representative also noted that the institutions would not all resume at the same time, remarking that students should wait for communication from the institution on the exact date, time and place that the classes will occur.
The official also warned students who are not currently in Macau, namely those that have returned home to the mainland, not to rush back to Macau without clear notification from their institution informing them that they should return for class.