A survey, recently, in Macau found that only 15% of Macao middle school students have a clear career plan.
The values of the new generation of Macau will play an important role in the development of Macau’s future, in the coming decades. To quote Chairman Mao’s words to the youth: “The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours…. Hope rests on you.” However, it is quite worrying how much Macau students look into their own career planning, or their visibility to future development.
Young people, as well as middle school students, can never be like Taylor Swift’s song: “I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything.” Although the environment of Macau cannot compare with other cities in the world. The dominance of the gambling industry has led to an abnormal development of the society. Young people are limited by the actual environment and fail to have the full imagination of the future.
I still remember that when I was in middle school, Portuguese language education and the role of the Sino-Luso platform in Macau were still not promoted. A classmate once asked the teacher about his opinions about going to Portugal to study, but he got a negative response: “It’s useless to study there.” Such opinions really hurt student’s development. Nowadays, even though it is easy to access different kinds of information, students tend to seek advice from their teachers, and their words are very important to the students.
Career planning is always difficult to do. When people grow up, the values that one believes in may also change. Do you still remember your dreams in middle school?
*Chinese editor at Plataforma
