Abstract
The first region in China to offer complete free kindergarten, primary and secondary education to its residents, the evolution of policy deliberation of the Macau Special Administrative Region, serves as an unprecedented model for other cities in the Greater China region. Since the Portuguese colonial era, a laissez-faire fashion featuring limited state intervention has been dominating the education landscape of Macau. Realising education is the key to improve the quality of the people and ultimately the economic future of the territory, the Macau government finally instigated measures in 2007 to regain the control of schools and extended the free education policy to 15 years. Using the 3A2S theoretical framework, this chapter analyses Macau’s free kindergarten education policy with reference to the dimensions of accessibility, affordability, accountability, sustainability and social justice. This chapter concludes that in light of the non-discriminatory treatment that Macau residents enjoyed, Macau’s free education kindergarten policy fully achieved accessibility, affordability and social justice, but only average accountability was achieved given the absence of a quality review mechanism. Sustainability was somewhat doubtful taking into consideration Macau’s strong reliance on its casino and gaming industries but, at the same time, the government’s announcement of its commitment to develop the region’s non-tertiary education with its 10-year plan. More efficacious, continuous and practical efforts would be needed to fortify the accountability and sustainability of Macau’s 15-year free education policy in the long run.
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Abbreviations
- 3A2S:
-
Accessibility, affordability, accountability, sustainability and social justice
- CPI:
-
Consumer Price Index
- DSEC:
-
Statistics and Census Service
- DSEJ:
-
Education and Youth Affairs Bureau
- GCS:
-
Government Information Bureau
- GDP:
-
Gross domestic product
- ISCED:
-
International Standard Classification of Education
- MOI:
-
Medium of instruction
- MOP:
-
Macau Pataca
- MSAR:
-
Macau Special Administrative Region
- OECD:
-
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
- SEN:
-
Special educational needs
- USD:
-
US dollars
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Lau, M.M. (2017). A Postcolonial Analysis of the Free Kindergarten Education Policy in Macau. In: Li, H., Park, E., Chen, J. (eds) Early Childhood Education Policies in Asia Pacific. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 35. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1528-1_6
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