The educational environment is constantly evolving, with official policies being regularly updated and teachers needing to adjust their practices in response to social and pedagogical changes. Since 2021, the Directorate of Education and Youth Development Services (DSEDJ) has set the goal of progressively reducing the number of students per class to a maximum of 35. Although this measure aims to improve the quality of education, it puts additional pressure on teachers. In addition to their usual responsibilities of teaching and lesson preparation, teachers will have to pay more attention to each student’s emotional issues, devote more time to continuous training (often in distant locations), and maintain regular communication with parents, often after working hours.
Moreover, teachers face administrative bureaucracy, which often requires extra work at home, compromising their rest time and directly affecting their family life and physical and psychological well-being.
On the other hand, many educators consider the current classroom arrangements too rigid and inflexible, making it difficult to adapt to unexpected situations. For example, when a teacher is absent due to illness or when it is necessary to adjust schedules due to exams, there is no flexibility to reorganize classes. As a result, students end up missing important lessons, and teachers are forced to compress the curriculum content, making the pace of lessons too tight. This pressure compromises the students’ learning experience and makes it difficult to achieve the expected educational outcomes.
According to the data from the “Forecast of the Future Supply and Demand of Teaching Staff in Non-Higher Education in Macau (2020-2023)”, the number of newly graduated teachers has been increasing, with an excess of professionals in early childhood education that is up to ten times higher than the demand. The saturation of the teaching staff is also visible at other education levels, which raises significant concern among recent graduates regarding their professional prospects and simultaneously puts pressure on teachers currently in service.
In this context, the authorities should encourage young people to carry out educational internships for one to two years in schools in inland China, where they can gain experience while waiting for their placement in local schools. Schools in Macau should consider this experience as an important hiring criterion, thus increasing the attractiveness of the program.
At the same time, authorities should take advantage of the opportunities arising from demographic changes to optimize available resources and address the issue of excessive variation in the number of students in schools. A very small or excessively large number of students negatively impacts the development of students and increases teachers’ stress.
Macau Civil Servants Association
