Lawrence Tsui Po Fung Vice-President (Macau) East Asia Forum for Adult Education Principal, Millennium Secondary School, Macau I. Review of Government Policy on Lifelong Education/Learning Macau S.A.R. was formally established on 20th December, 1999. But before that day, the existing Chief Executive, Mr. Edmund Ho Hau Wah had to run for his Chief Executive position in an election. As one of the candidates, he mentioned lifelong education in his policy on 'Education, Youth and Profession' that "....There is no age limitation for education, therefore S.A.R. government should create conditions to develop adult education and training, so that lifelong education in Macau can be promoted and generalized. The culture of having the habit to 'read' should also be encouraged...." At that time, three components of lifelong education were essential to Mr. Ho, namely, adult education , on-the- job training and the culture to 'read'. In early 2000, after Mr. Ho successfully won the election to become Chief Executive of Macau S.A.R. and formed his cabinet. His Secretary for Social and Cultural Affairs publicized the 2000 Education Policy that Macau S.A.R .government will "...enforced the development of higher education for adults and promote the concept of lifelong education. For this goal, special attention will be paid to the needs of continuing training and university level continuing education." While in the 2000 Policy on General Education, it was written under the topic of "Direction for Development of Lifelong Education" that "... relating to Lifelong Education, emphasises will be put upon planning, training and information provision of recurrent education and continuing/social education. At the same time, private sector will be encouraged to take initiative in this aspect." Recurrent Education in Macau, defined by the Decree Law 32/95/M ,in fact is a flexible way similar to 'credit bank' for adults to earn recognized primary and/or secondary education standard. It is true that more higher education institutions were found or prepared since 2000. And a few more adult secondary schools were also established before or after the founding of S.A.R. to accommodate the sudden growth of adult students who were currently low-rank government employees who used to be employed by former Portuguese Government, especially those employed by different departments of the security force who had only primary education standard. In the abstract of 2001 Education Policy of Macau S.A.R. government, it stated that "... In order to adapt to the needs of social development, education will take a further step towards an education system which is multi-channel and lifelong oriented. We (Macau government) will : organize more courses on continuing education and higher education for adults; establish a better recurrent education system; try our best to eradicate illiteracy: upgrade the quality of vocational and special education." Although there was nothing new in 2001 policy, the General Education Directorate had started to organized a small scale "Lifelong Education Day" in this year. Inside the 2002 Policy Paper for the General Education System, there was an unique topic called "Resource Development on Lifelong Education". It stated that the government will, "... established a closer relationship with schools and associations to develop, open-up and utilize existing resources of lifelong education, especially on the resources of schools. Government will also: encourage more research and plan for the future lifelong education system of Macau; increase the opportunity for learning; establish more systematic and practical training mechanism; pay attention to the training of citizens on information, languages, communication and management. Through the multi-cultural and multimedia education activities, deepen citizens' knowledge on culture and art; promote health education; strengthen individual ability and actualize their potentiality. No matter whether educational activities are done through formal, non-formal or informal way, the purpose is to guarantee that they are better implemented for the purpose of upgrading citizens' ability, legal knowledge, environmental sensibility patriotism, community involvement, as well as global perspectives.. In order to attend these goals, we (government) will try our best to provide enough educational support and facilities; to publish a series of adult education material and research periodicals; encourage citizens to nourish the habit of lifelong learning; create conditions to actualize "Education for All"; prepare Macau to step towards a learning society which is healthy and enthusiastic ". This is the first time Macau government to use such a long statement to describe so many different goals, purposes, aspects, methods and ways of lifelong education. In fact, the Taiwan Adult Education Association had been contracted by the Macau government to help to establish "Indicators for Ability of Adult Educators" for Macau ; the government periodical called "Lifelong Learning" was also started to publish and the Lifelong Education Day had been prolonged to be a Lifelong Learning Week in this year. . In order to solve the problem of unemployment, Macau government in this year approved a special budget of Four Hundred Million Patacas (approximately 50 million US dollars) for the unemployed adults to involve in job-skill retraining. Participants could get monthly allowance while enjoying free-of-charge training of different levels provided by the 3 higher education institutions owned by the government. For 2003,Higher Education Policy stated that " All higher education institutions will : push toward plans of lifelong learning, up-grade citizen's cultural and technical standard. Macau University (the government university), will explore to establish a School for Continuing Education...." All 3 government higher education institutions will continue to run the vocational-technical training courses: pay attention to the practicality of these training courses to meet the needs of the society. In order to upgrade citizen's culture and knowledge, all institutions will :develop relevant department, open a wide variety of courses and to encourage citizens' lifelong learning." In the General Education Policy under the topic of "Development of Lifelong Education", it was stated that "....In order to secure the orderly development of lifelong education in Macau, government will :use some mechanism of encouragement and regulating, to enrich the resource of lifelong education and guarantee the quality of lifelong education. For this purpose, government will provide venues to encourage newly set-up lifelong education institutions and will regulate the training activities for trainers in order to guarantee the quality of teaching and learning." Obviously, Macau government had a better conceptual understanding of lifelong learning and the Lifelong Learning Week held in this year had been expanded to include libraries, museums, youth centers, community centers and environmental information centers besides formal and non-formal educational institutions. Government has recently proposed an outline for the 2004 Policy in It stateds that :"Government needs a thorough review of Education System Law. Government will :aim at upgrading the knowledge and values of students, promote the culture and habit of "reading"....It is necessary to :integrate vocational aspects into lifelong education, construct Macau to becom a Non-stop (Lifelong ) Learning City in order to upgrade the quality of education. Values like multiculturalism, tolerance, acceptance,....etc have to be maintained in Macau society. We need to generalized these values through education from nursery to university, and from basic to lifelong education." II.Macau's Situation on two Macro Lifelong Learning Issues 1.Development of Lifelong Learning City Macau government plans to make Macau a Lifelong Learning City (2004 Policy) with special emphasis on maintaining certain 'good' values. After reviewing the education policy since the founding of Macau S.A.R. government, we can at least trust that the Edmund Ho government has the good will to lead make Macau towards a Learning Society. Of course,it needs a process and takes time, especially for the traditional private sector of general education institutions to adopt necessary changes for the future Lifelong Education System. Macau is already lucky that there is not a standard examination scheme for all school students at any level. Schools have their own right to plan and change their own curriculum and issue certificates of qualification recognized by the government. However, parents are still preferring schools which have heavy study tasks for students which help them to acquired more memorized knowledge. This phenomenon is just an opposite side of a "Learning School' which emphasize Students' 'learning how to learn'. Government schools have taken the lead to open to community and encourage "creative teaching", yet changing the traditional mentality of majority parents and schools leaders is one of the most problematic issues faced by the government. There are altogether ten higher education institutions in Macau which has only four hundred thousand population. Among them, four owned by government and six owned by private sectors. Since higher education is a self-financed activity, competition in the market of higher education for adults is going on among these institutions. New strategies and methods like: open-learning system, flexible credit-earning system, variety of courses and subjects for choice, application of modern education technology...etc are already adopted by existing higher education institutions in Macau,. This fact has given a good preparation to integrate higher education into the future Macau Lifelong Education System. On the other hand, Macau Government has got most information and material about Adult Education, or Lifelong Education/Learning from Taiwan. And they have quite probably adopted the following indications recommended by Professor Lin Ching-Jiang (1995) to construct the future Lifelong Education System: 1.Eradicate illiteracy, including functional illiteracy 2.Coordinate and integrate formal education, non-formal education and informal education, provide multi-channel for learning 3.Utilize open/distance learning networks as well as community based colleges to encourage the opportunity for adult learning, especially via the open learning system 4.Establish recurrent education system, enhance the flexibility of school education in order to encourage "interest to learn" of the public; 5.Implement multi-systems of learning evaluation and certification, and change the existing phenomenon that traditional view to use qualification as the only indicator for selection of human resource. 6.Adopt the concept of Learning Society and Lifelong Education and use it as policy direction for education development and reform. 7.Establish community-based lifelong education centers to coordinate, integrate and provide learning information/resources to members of e communities 8.Encourage private enterprises to develop learning organizations in order to promote continuing education. 9.Concretize the legislation and policy-making on lifelong learning and strengthen activities and establishment for lifelong education 10.Promote lifelong educational establishment and activities to actualize the ideology of 'Educate for All' 2. Lifelong Learning/Education Legislation The first law on Education in Macau was passed in the year 1991 (Law 11/91/M). In Article No.3, under "Principles of Education", the second paragraph mentions that "The government will promote the development of adequate mechanism for an effective equality of opportunities on access and success of school education." and in Article No. 3 under 'Organizational Principles', the following two paragraphs also guarantee elements of lifelong learning: Paragraph g) "Assure a schooling of second opportunity for those who did not fulfill the required education in their suitable age" and paragraph i) "Assume the application of Lifelong Education principles, give the total population the opportunity of having education, no matter whether through regular education channel or under non-formal education environment. Article No.14 of this law is "Adult Education" which defines the objectives of adult education to be "a) eradicate illiteracy and functional illiteracy; b) give educational opportunities for those who did not fulfill the required schooling in regular system; and c) promote civic education and activities of cultural nature." In Article No.53, the law mentions that there should be ten supplementary Decree Laws to define more detail of the law and 'Adult Education' is one of this ten. This Decree Law (35/95/M) was publicized on July 17, 1995. In the introduction of this Decree Law, it says: "Adult Education is for people who have passed the normal age to receive different levels of formal schooling..Under the perspective of lifelong education, adult education aims at increase the knowledge and develop the potentiality of the adults in order to complement or compensate what should be taught in school during their school age"." This Decree Law covers only 1)compensation-oriented primary or secondary school courses for adult and 2) out-of-school continuing education for adults which can get exemption from formal education system. Making use of this Decree Law, Macau Government has already started flexible credit-earning way of primary and secondary education. Unfortunately, there has nothing proceeded in continuing education which can get exemption from formal education system. Early this year of 2003, Macau Government had prepared a draft to modify the existing Education Law. The draft proposes to use the term 'Continuing Education to include: 1) adult education ,2) recurrent education for adults, and 3) Non-formal education. This is a confusion and misusage of professional terms recognized by international world. On the other hand, in the draft of the future Education Law, 'Education for All' and 'Lifelong Learning' both have been recognized as very important "General Objectives" of future Macau Education, yet there is nothing in the document about Family (or Parent) Education and Community Education and how they integrate with the existing School Education. In fact, Macau government did add "nourish children's interest to know and learn" as one of the objectives of Kindergarten Education as well as "upgrade different abilities of student, especially emphasis will be put upon students' role to learn, skill to learn, ability to think creatively and to solve problems." As one of the objectives of Primary Education .All these proposed objectives are aiming at the direction of lifelong learning society. However, the modification of existing 'Education Law' is not yet finalized . There is still hope and space for adult and lifelong educators of Macau to persuade the Macau Government to correct or to add more necessary context for the future Macau Lifelong Learning Society. Reference 1.Edmund Ho (1999). Policy on Macau S.A.R. for Election of Chief Executive, the part on "Education, youth" 2.Macau S.A.R. Government (2000). "Macau S.A.R. Government Policy for the Financial Year of 2000", from the website http://www.macau.gov.mo/policy2000 3.Macau S.A.R. Government (2001). "Macau S.A.R. Government Policy for the Financial Year of 2001", from the website http://www.macau.gov.mo/policy2001 4.Macau S.A.R. Government (2002). "Macau S.A.R. Government Policy for the Financial Year of 2002", from the website http://www.macau.gov.mo/policy2002 5.Macau S.A.R. Government (2003). "Macau S.A.R. Government Policy for the Financial Year of 2003", from the website http://www.macau.gov.mo/policy2003 6.Macau S.A.R. Government (2004). "Macau S.A.R. Government Policy for the Financial Year of 2004", from the website http://www.macau.gov.mo/policy2004 7.Directorate of Services for Education and Youth (1992) "Legislation on Education System of Macau" Law No. 11/91/M, pp11-32 8.Directorate of Services for Education and Youth (1992) "Legislation on Education System of Macau" Decree Law No. 32/95/M, pp183-190 9.Lin Ching-Jiang (1995). "Education Reform in Learning Society" in Adult Education Bimonthly No.27 pp2-9 10.Lu Lan-Chin (2003). "School that opened for Community-Experience of Tagmagnini Barabosa Primary School" ¡V Paper presented in the Seminar on Community Education and lifelong learning held in Macau (September 26-28, 2003