Most schools in

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

are private or subsidized schools. As of the 2023–2024 school year, there were 76 schools in Macau, including eight public schools and 68 private schools. Of the 73 schools that offered formal education, six were not a part of Macau's free education network. many of the schools in Macau are operated by Catholic organizations. A basic 15-year compulsory, free

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, is offered to those pupils who have been enrolled at the schools which have met certain requirements stipulated by the government. The majority of schools in Macau are

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

s, which offer

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

learning,

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

subjects, and

social studies In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as ...

, among others, to pupils. There are only a few

vocational school A vocational school (alternatively known as a trade school, or technical school), is a type of educational institution, which, depending on the country, may refer to either secondary education#List of tech ed skills, secondary or post-secondar ...

s in Macau, offering technical subjects such as car-repairing, electronics, and constructions. As prescribed by the Basic Law of Macau, Chapter VI, Article 121, the

Government of Macau The Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Macao Government, is the Executive_(government), executive authorities of Macau. Formed on 20 December 1999 in accordance with the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declarati ...

shall, on its own, formulate policies on

, including policies regarding the educational system and its administration, the language of instruction, the allocation of funds, the examination system, the recognition of educational qualifications and the system of academic awards so as to promote educational development. The government shall also in accordance with law, gradually institute a

compulsory education Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at home or other places. Compulsory school attendance or compulsory sc ...

system. Community organizations and individuals may, in accordance with law, run educational undertakings of various kinds.

History

According to Sou-kuan Vong and Matilda Wong of the

University of Macau The University of Macau (UM or UMAC) is a public comprehensive research university in Macau. The university campus is located in Hengqin, Hengqin Island, Zhuhai, Guangdong, on a piece of land leased to and under the jurisdiction of the Governmen ...

, the prevalence of private schools in Macau is due to the

Portuguese Macau Macau was under Portuguese Empire, Portuguese rule from the establishment of the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 until its Handover of Macau, handover to China in 1999. It comprised the Municipality of Macau and the Municipality of ...

government practice of not involving itself in educational matters. - doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.1.34 - Cited: p. 35 By the early 1950s pro-Communist and pro-Nationalist forces competed over how much influence they had in Macau's education system. Christian schools in Macau gained strength at the expense of secular schools since the Christian schools received support from Christian organizations: the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau The Diocese of Macau (; ) is a Latin Church exempt ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church, in contrast with the Diocese of Hong Kong, which is, ''de jure'', part of the Ecclesiastical Province of Guangdong. The territory o ...

assisted the Catholic schools, and various churches based in and outside of Macau assisted the Protestant schools. There were ten schools affiliated with Nationalist forces in Macau during the early 1960s, and at the time the Nationalist forces had more influence than Communist ones. After 1967 and 1968 riots disrupted Nationalist forces, that faction's schools closed. As of the 1990s secular private schools, including those supported by the pro-mainland Macau Chinese Education System, other welfare organizations, and philanthropists; and the Christian schools had about equal amounts of influence and numbers of students.

System of education

At present, most schools in Macau follow a so-called "local education system". Six years of

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

education, three years for junior

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

education and three years for senior

education up to Form 6. In their senior secondary school years, students are usually required to study science, commerce, arts and music. Pupils who plan to study further would usually sit for the exam organised by the higher education institutes, or international assessment bodies like

Edexcel Edexcel (also known since 2013 as Pearson Edexcel) is a British multinational education and examination body formed in 1996 and wholly owned by Pearson plc since 2005. It is the only privately owned examination board in the United Kingdom. It ...

, CIE and

College Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...

, or the related government bodies in China.

School grade

Mediums of instruction

The majority of schools offer both

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

and English education, and either Cantonese or English is the medium in most schools at the primary and secondary levels. Chinese-Medium-of-Instruction (CMI) schools adopt Cantonese as the medium of instruction for almost all classes. English-Medium-of-Instruction (EMI) schools generally adopt English as the medium of instruction. English is used almost exclusively at the tertiary level. Macau Portuguese School is currently the only school in Macau offering curricula similar to those of Portugal and a Portuguese-language education for pupils from 1st grade to 12th grade. The Escola Secundária Luso-Chinesa de Luís Gonzaga Gomes is a public school that has a Chinese and a Portuguese section. The Escola Oficial Zheng Guanying is a pilot project of the government that conducts classes in Mandarin, Portuguese, and English. There are some students with origins from Macau, Hong Kong, or mainland China who natively speak a variety of Chinese but who have education in English.

Primary, secondary, and vocational education

In the 2007–2008 school year, Macau had 55 private preschool, primary and secondary schools with subsidised tuition, 15 private preschool, primary and secondary schools without subsidised tuition, and 13 government preschool, primary and secondary schools, with a total of 83 primary and secondary schools. These schools altogether had 80,223 students and 4,610 teachers. Macau parents generally choose schools by their reputations, since Macau does not have territory-wide standard examinations, and there is a preference for religious schools among upper-class parents due to a perceived higher quality of education. the 27 Catholic schools in Macau made up about 36.4% of the educational sectors other than tertiary education. Since 2007, in accordance with the general education goal of "Love China, love Macau ", China People Education Press in China, which is the official press affiliated to the Ministry of Education of China, has cooperated with the Macao Education and Youth Bureau to compile and publish three textbooks for Macao primary and secondary schools, including the "History" and "Character and Citizenship" and " Geography ".

Higher education

There are more than ten higher-learning institutions in Macau. Some students choose to further their studies in the local universities or polytechnics whereas some others choose to further their studies in mainland Portugal, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, or some other places.

International schools

A number of

international schools International schools are private schools that promote education in an international environment or framework. Although there is no uniform definition or criteria, international schools are usually characterised by a multinational student body an ...

operate in Macau, such as the School of the Nations, Macau Anglican College and International School of Macao.