On December 25-28, a MOE delegation led by Vice Minister of Education Tian Xuejun visited Macao and attended the 26th Major Assembly of Chinese Educators, which was jointly hosted by the MOE, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong S.A.R. and the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao S.A.R., and co-organized by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of the MSAR Government and the Chinese Educators Association of Macao, with the support of Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers and the Association for Educational Exchange and Promotion Across the Taiwan Strait. Over 1,000 Chinese educators from the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and abroad participated in the event.
Edmund Ho Hau Wah, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC and former Macao Chief Executive, attended the welcome dinner, while Ho Iat Seng, the present Macao Chief Executive, and Fu Ziying, Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao S.A.R., attended the opening ceremony. At the event, Vice Minister Tian delivered a keynote speech entitled “Educational development of the new China and an educational blueprint for the new era”. In this speech, Tian spoke of the progress achieved in education since the founding the People’s Republic of China and of future plans for educational development in the coming years; he also encouraged all teachers to strive for excellence in the new era.
During his visit to Macao, Tian met with Chief Executive Ho. Ho extended a warm welcome to the MOE delegation and exchanged views with Tian on issues such as deepened implementation of the guidance from President Xi Jinping’s important speech on his inspection tour in Macao, continuous improvement of the quality of education in Macao, heightening of patriotism among the people of Macao, further exchange and cooperation in education between Macao and the mainland, and the active contribution to the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Tian said that, the MOE would continue to promote mainland-Macao cooperation in faculty and student exchange, teaching as well as research in universities, high schools and primary schools, through the Ten Thousand Talent Plan, sister schools and other platforms; provide support and assistance to the MSAR Government in teacher training, textbook development and more areas; and pushing forward the progress of education in both Macao and the mainland, to ensure a steady supply of talent for the implementation of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy and the long-term prosperity in Macao. In the next three years, the MOE would invite 500 high school students from Macao to join the STEM Summer Camps, and in the upcoming decade, it would offer training-in-mainland opportunities to 1,000 Macao teachers.
In addition to work meetings with Liaison Office Director Fu and Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of Macao Government Ao Ieong U, Tian visited the University of Macau and the Macau Polytechnic Institute, to attend the signing ceremonies for the Center for Constitutional Law and Basic Law Studies, the Educational Research Center and the Engineering Research Center for Machine Translation and Artificial Intelligence Applied Technology. He also spoke to local and foreign teachers participating in the Major Assembly and took part in a colloquium with their representatives.
