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Asia Pacific Journal of Education

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Private supplementary tutoring in

Macao: past, present and the future
a b
Titus Siu Pang Li & Ben Cheong Choi
a
Faculty of Psychology and Education, Vrije University
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
b
Association of Childhood Education International - Hong Kong
and Macao
Published online: 12 Dec 2014.

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To cite this article: Titus Siu Pang Li & Ben Cheong Choi (2014) Private supplementary tutoring
in Macao: past, present and the future, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34:4, 505-517, DOI:
10.1080/02188791.2014.978743

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 Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 2014
Vol. 34, No. 4, 505–517, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2014.978743

Private supplementary tutoring in Macao: past, present and the future

Titus Siu Pang Lia* and Ben Cheong Choib
a
Faculty of Psychology and Education, Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands; bAssociation
of Childhood Education International - Hong Kong and Macao
(Received 27 May 2014; accepted 15 September 2014)

Shadow education across Southeast Asia is quite diverse in form, its development in
Macao being particularly distinctive. A brief history of educational provision in Macao
is presented and patterns of educational provision over the past five centuries are
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outlined. The basic education available to students in Macao in recent years is then
described, provision reflecting the beliefs and objectives of the governments operating
in Macao from 1990 to its present-day status as a Special Administrative Region of the
People’s Republic of China. The reasons for the prevalence of private supplementary
tutoring are then discussed and its current forms of operation described. Finally, the
ways by which the Macao Government has regulated shadow education are examined,
particularly with reference to the impact on the standards of private supplementary
tutoring, and likely future developments are explored.
Keywords: Macao; supplementary tutoring; after-school homework supervision
classes; private tutoring industry; regulating private supplementary tutoring

Introduction
Prior to the return of Macao from Portuguese to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, Macao was
an impoverished island country off the southern coast of China. Its return to China
coincided with the sudden and astonishing rise of luxury buildings and full employment
triggered by the advent of the booming casino gambling industry around the turn of the
twenty-first century. In a single decade, Macao’s economy became very wealthy and
nouveau riche ethnic Chinese parents have been passionate for their offspring to receive an
education equal in quality to that found in other countries in Southeast Asia.
Bray and Lykins (2012) are not alone in reporting the ample evidence of a cultural
propensity for parents in many Asian countries to pay for private tutoring to supplement
school provision, particularly in countries where society follows Confucian principles.
After-school private tutoring is widespread in many countries in Asia, usually taking the
form of (1) parents engaging the services of individual private tutors for their offspring; (2)
students receiving occasional and small-scale tuition in important subject areas; (3) large-
scale cramming classes preparing students for key public examinations; and (4) tutors
being engaged to help children complete homework assignments. Many researchers (Bray,
1999, 2009, 2011; Bray & Lykins, 2012; Dang, 2007; Dawson, 2010; Kim & Lee, 2010;
Lim, 2012; Roesgaard, 2006; Rowley, 2012; Scott, Aurini, & Quirke, 2002; Sharma, 2012)
have examined such provision, especially in countries in Asia. The out-of-school tutoring
studied usually “shadows” the teaching that students receive in their day school, the
external tutors often employing exactly the same textbooks the children are using in class,

*Corresponding author. Email: titusli@gmail.com

q 2014 National Institute of Education, Singapore

 506 T.S.P. Li and B.C. Choi

or the tutor brushing up the students’ grasp of subject matter likely to be tested in imminent
examinations.
At the heart of much of the effort invested by “shadow” educators in Korea, Japan,
Singapore, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the skills and competence that secondary
school graduates must master if they are to pass entrance examinations to tertiary
education professional training, to further education establishments and to universities.
Even though there are no major public examinations in Macao that focus specifically on
gaining entry to higher education establishments, students are introduced to out-of-school
tutoring at a very early age in order to avoid having to repeat the current school grade or
being expelled from the school. Shadow education is expanding at all stages and levels of
educational provision in Macao from kindergarten to the end of secondary school. The
services of such “shadow” educators are quite diverse in character across Southeast Asia,
their operation and regulation in Macao for years being quite idiosyncratic.
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The aims of this paper are to describe the operation of shadow education for the
Chinese community in Macao and how the education authorities have responded to its
growth. As a forerunner to the discussion of forms of shadow education in Macao, a brief
history of basic education development and provision in the state is outlined. The pattern
of basic primary and secondary education provision available to students over recent
decades in Macao is then set out and discussed. The ways provision reflects the intentions
and purposes of Macao’s differing government regimes over the years are teased out,
especially for the period spanning the late 1990s to the system applying in the current
Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government. Provision in each phase is outlined
alongside the ways and reasons why parents have felt pressurized into recruiting the
services of after-school tutors for their children. Special attention is paid to the impact of
the recent casino gambling industry on the time parents have to supervise and assist their
children’s education at home. Finally, the ways the Macao Government has regulated
shadow education are examined, with particular reference to the impact on standards of
private supplementary tutoring, and likely future developments are discussed.
Given Macao’s fairly small size and short history of higher education, there is yet
limited empirical research undertaken on shadow education. Thus, this paper mainly
draws on policy documents and media reports which reflect on the issue of shadow
education in Macao. It is hoped that this can serve as a foundation for more in-depth
research in the future.

Basic education development in Macao: a historical perspective

Education is a complex process, reflecting cultural, economic, political, religious and
social influences in society (Bray & Koo, 2004; Thomas, 1983a, 1983b). Since Portugal
was a Roman Catholic country in its colonial years, educational provision in Macao was in
the hands of Portuguese missionary clergy from the sixteenth century (Basto da Silva,
1995; Pires, 1991). Over the past five centuries, Macao experienced political events that
led to the development of a quite unusual education system. For instance, at the time of the
handover of Macao to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in December 1999, there was
no societally agreed unitary school system in operation, due principally to an imbalance in
scale between government and private schools sanctioned by the Portuguese Macao
Government.
Macao society was for centuries made up of two distinct ethnic and racial groups:
a sizeable majority Chinese population and a significant but much smaller number of
Portuguese citizens. This gave rise to two separate education systems and traditions in
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 507

Macao: Chinese and Western. From 1570 to 1799, the Catholic Church was the sole
provider of Western-style education in Macao, predominantly financed from Portugal
(Lau, 1994; Lei, 2001). Interestingly, during the colonial times, only the offspring of
Portuguese administrators, a small number of the ethnic Chinese children of privileged
Chinese employees of government officials, and the poor were entitled to the small scale
state education. A number of new providers of education, including the local Macao
Government, Chinese community and Protestant missionaries, stepped in to fill the gap
after the closing down of Catholic schools by the Portuguese Kingdom in the nineteenth
century.
From 1900 to 1949, there was a fairly rapid expansion of private Chinese schools in the
era culminating in the Second World War and the Revolution in China. At this time, many
educated Chinese refugees took sanctuary in Macao. The years 1949 to 1975 were a
troublesome period of political struggle after the birth of the PRC. For a short period of
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time, a tripartite education system (Macao, Mainland China and Taiwan) existed. The
stability of this arrangement was shattered following political events in 1966 and 19741.
The number of schools with links to Mainland China gradually increased and gathered
momentum. During the last 25 years of education provision under the Portuguese Macao
administration from 1975 to 1999, the government invested large sums of money to
expand educational provision for Chinese children, building new schools, training
teachers, increasing teacher salaries and implementing new education laws for the delivery
of free education.
The new Macao Chinese SAR Government, established in 1999 upon the return to
Chinese sovereignty of Portuguese Macao, initially maintained many of the existing social
and education policies in an effort to ensure a smooth and trouble-free transition in the first
few years. Gradually, a number of additional legislative reforms on education were
introduced in order to facilitate the efficient and uniform operation of schools in the state.
For instance, the 1991 Law of Macao Education System was replaced by the Fundamental
Law of Non-tertiary Education System in 2006 (Macao SAR Government, 2006). The 10
years free education system enacted in 1997, entitling all children between the age of five
and 15 to receive free education (comprising the final year of kindergarten, six years of
primary and three years of junior secondary schooling) in Macao was extended to 15 years
of free education in 2007 (Macao SAR Government, 2007). The most pressing concern of
the newly formed SAR Government was to improve the quality and uniformity of basic
education for all Macao children, regardless of ethnicity, both in the public and private
sectors.

The current non-tertiary education school system operating in Macao

The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (Direcc ão dos Servic os de Educac ão e Juventude
[DSEJ]) is responsible for overseeing non-tertiary (kindergarten, primary and secondary
school) education services sanctioned by the Macao SAR Government. A 15-year free
education system is in place. As grade repeating is a common phenomenon in Macao,
some children may have received up to 18 years of free education by the time they
eventually leave secondary school at the age of 21.
However, there is as yet no state-agreed, unitary system applying to all school sectors
in Macao. Graduates from kindergartens and primary schools still need to take a separate
school entrance examination to enter the next phase of schooling. In fact, many parents
prefer their children to enrol in “through-train” schools2 so that they can receive
uninterrupted basic education. However in 2006, the government promulgated the
 508 T.S.P. Li and B.C. Choi

Fundamental Law of the Non-tertiary Education System 2006 which has solved the
multiple-track education system problem with its varying school age group systems by
consolidating secondary education into two layers: three years of junior secondary and
three years of senior secondary education (Macao SAR Government, 2006). This
arrangement is congruent with the education system operating in Mainland China.
With the aim of ensuring uniform free education for all, the Macao SAR Government
has provided funding to attract private schools into joining the free education school
network scheme, since official schools provide for only a relatively small proportion of
students. In the school year 2012 –2013, 64 out of 75 schools, including 11 official schools
and 53 government dependent private schools, are under the umbrella of the “Free
Education” schools network (DSEJ, 2013a).
By such interventions, the SAR Government is raising its profile and presence in
running the educational affairs of private schools. It is also systematically improving the
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quality of non-tertiary education institutes in Macao by setting out clear guidelines about
what constitutes a “good” education. This is perfectly compatible with the high degree of
autonomy that private schools enjoy in the territory.

Reasons for the increased incidence of supplementary tutoring in Macao

Unlike in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Singapore (Lim, 2012; Sharma, 2012), where
high-stakes entrance examinations to universities are somewhat associated with the
demand for private supplementary tutoring, there is no well-developed, tertiary entrance
examination system in Macao. Nevertheless, supplementary tutoring in the territory has
become widespread in recent decades.
One of the main reasons for Macao school students to take supplementary tuition was
the insufficiency of well-staffed secondary schools in the 1980s and 1990s. In the school
year 1996– 1997, there were 7,316 students in primary 6, 6,919 in junior secondary 1, and
3,934 in senior secondary 1 (DSEJ, 1997). In order to ensure that students would gain a
seat in senior forms, teachers gave them very demanding homework to drill them for the
examinations. They taught all students in each class as a group using the same textbook;
many students could easily cope but others fell behind. For the latter, teachers would
regularly give extra homework. The pressure on students to improve and do well was
immense. Teachers had to adhere to a very tightly packed syllabus, whether or not the
children could keep up. The reality was that many students did not understand lesson
content in school and therefore struggled with school assignments at home. Many parents
whose long working hours precluded them from personally supervising their children’s
homework or who simply lacked the relevant knowledge to help due to their own low level
of education, recruited private tutors to help in their children’s homework (Li, 1998).
Teachers were also willing to supervise after-school tutoring classes to top up their low
basic salary. Access to higher incomes from the burgeoning gambling industry in Macao
enabled parents to afford extra tuition for their children.
Another driving force for accelerating the demand of supplementary education is the
nature of the elite education system in Macao private schools. Parents whose children are
able to cope comfortably in school were nevertheless anxious about their children’s
progress. Schools in Macao place elite education on a pedestal and teachers engage
children in rote-learning exercises. Parents whose children are struggling to keep up in
class fear that their children will fall so far behind that they might fail end-of-year
examinations. For instance, the average end-of-year examination failure rate for primary
students was 8.4% while it was 14.2% for secondary students from school year 1991 to
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 509

1996 (DSEJ, 2014a). The report of the Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) 2009 study also reflected that the rate of repeating a year or more of Macao
15-year-olds was the highest among all the participating countries and economies
(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2010). This was
disastrous for some children as it could result in them having to repeat a year or to leave the
current school to avail of education in a less prestigious school. Understandably, many
parents engaged private tutors to prepare their children to cope with forthcoming dictation
sessions and scheduled lessons in school textbooks. They also engaged tutors to revisit
past examination papers with the children in order to help them pass weekly and monthly
tests and obtain end-of-year promotion. For instance, an advertisement of a private
supplementary tutoring centre stressed that students could be well prepared for tests and
examinations with the past test and examination papers collected in this centre (Ouvidor
Arriaga Tutoring Centre, 2014).
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Another factor in this regard is that the rapid growth of the casino-led gambling
industry in Macao has offered unanticipated opportunities for parents to work very long
hours in shifts around the clock. The monthly rotating shift system in the gambling and
hotel industry has created an added burden preventing parents from personally supervising
their children. For instance, many parents need to spend equal days on early shift work, on
day shift work, on early evening shift work and on all-night shift work within the same
month. Such parents have little time and/or confidence to assist and supervise their
children’s homework and thus have recourse to the many private supplementary tutoring
centres springing up in Macao to fill in the gap. They also avail of extra services provided
by tutoring centres, including a pick-up service between school and the private tutoring
centre until late in the evening and a catering service providing lunch and afternoon tea to
students. The HKPISA Centre (2008) reports that such non-academic services are
widespread and are routinely utilized by many kindergarten and primary students.

The impact and incidence of the shadow education “industry” in Macao

The burgeoning out-of-school, private tutoring industry in Macao has attracted the
attention of a number of government, academic and public bodies in recent years, and the
DSEJ has conducted some small-scale surveys to evaluate their impact. For instance,
a 2001 survey revealed that only 8.5% of parents employed private tutors to give
supplementary guidance to their children (DSEJ, 2001). A large-scale study conducted by
the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2006 reported that 70% of students taking
homework supervision or private tutoring classes were from primary school (HKPISA
Centre, 2007). In 2011, it was reported by Vong (2011a) that around 70% of kindergarten
and primary school students were receiving some form of supplementary tutoring.
The overall cost for private supplementary tutoring was roughly equivalent to the fees
paid by parents for kindergarten education (DSEJ, 2007). For instance, the average annual
school fee for private kindergarten is Mop$23,750 ( , US$2,960) in school year 2013–
2014 (DSEJ, 2014b). Meanwhile a tutoring centre may charge Mop$2,200 ( , US$250)
per month for homework supervision, meals and after school care until 9 pm for a
kindergarten student. Another study of shadow education in Macao conducted in 2008
found that the cost of tutoring a secondary student was around 50% of the total fee paid for
private secondary education (HKPISA Centre, 2008).
With respect to the incidence of homework supervision after school and the reasons for
participation in such services, the 2008 study revealed that private supplementary tutoring
commenced at the kindergarten level, peaked at the end of senior primary schooling, and
 510 T.S.P. Li and B.C. Choi

declined in the early secondary school stage (HKPISA Centre, 2008). This pattern may be
explained by the reasons underlying the demand for private tuition. Among the most
common reasons of parents for engaging after-school homework supervision and private
supplementary tutoring services was to avail of supplementary tutoring centres as a “child
day care centre” to look after their children while they are at work. Interestingly, very few
parents mentioned whether the academic standards of their children had improved. These
findings mirror those reported by Tse et al. (2013) in a large-scale study of the reading
standards of Macao primary school students, including individuals who had or were
receiving private tutoring. Tse et al. found that tutored-children performed no better than
students who had not received tutoring.
In addition to the findings of academic studies, a number of educators, parents and
social commentators have voiced serious concern about private supplementary tutoring in
Macao (e.g., Churk, 2012; Kam, 2011, 2012; Macao Daily, 2007, 2012a, 2012b, 2014b;
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Mother Flowery, 2007; Supper Mother, 2007; Vong, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d, 2011e,
2011f; Yu, 2012). Almost all of them mentioned the disproportionate and sudden growth
of supplementary education in the territory, with some likening it to the spoon-feeding of
children. Most commentators criticize the quality and professionalism of private tutoring
centres and urge parents, teachers, schools and the Macao SAR Government to accept
some responsibility for the dramatic expansion of shadow education in recent years. Many
argue that such tutoring would be quite unnecessary if the quality of school teaching was
better; if parents could take a more personal role in supporting children after school; and if
supplementary tutoring providers in Macao were subject to professional inspections and
scrutiny.

The current form and conditions of private supplementary tutoring in Macao

In addition to the one-to-one private tutorial at home, at least three different forms of after-
school supplementary tutoring are available for Macao students. These are: homework
supervision within one’s school; private supplementary tutoring in centres or by
individuals outside the school; and on-line private tutoring.
First, the most popular form of shadow education is the after-school homework
supervision sessions organized by the student’s own school. Students’ work is supervised
by teachers and help is given with homework assignments. Second, outside the school,
there are varying types of private supplementary tutoring providers. Large-scale private
supplementary tutoring centres need to apply for a licence to perform their task under the
Law of Regulating the Private Supplementary Pedagogic Supporting Centre from the
DSEJ. Small-scale private tutoring centres working with fewer than six students at any one
time do not need a licence, but must register with the DSEJ. Private individual tutors are
not required to register with the DSEJ. For instance, in 2014 there are 242 large-scale
private supplementary tutoring centres and 50 small-scale private tutoring centres (DSEJ,
2014c, 2014d). Besides, an increasing number of international private supplementary
tutoring businesses, such as KUMON, have begun to operate in Macao. Lastly, on-line
private tutoring websites, for example the Macau Tutoring Website (2013), have been
launched since 2006 to provide guidance and advice for potential tutors and tutees.
A number of public commentators (e.g., Supper Mother, 2007) have spoken about the
poor quality of the services offered by some private tutoring centres in Macao. They say
that some private tutors are dispassionate, pay little heed to children’s physical needs, give
students too many drill exercises and blame the children if they are unable to do their
homework properly. They seem to fail to understand the learning problems of individual
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 511

students and criticize slow learners. They often accuse them of being foolish, lacking in
concentration, showing no interest and being lazy. Some commentators complain that
many private supplementary tutoring centres do not pay tutors a reasonable salary and, in
consequence, they employ poorly qualified tutors. For instance, Mother Flowery (2007)
and Churk (2012) found that secondary school students were sometimes employed to
supervise primary students.
Press reports frequently comment on the uneven quality of the work offered by
organizations in the private sector (e.g., Churk, 2012; Kam, 2012). They also observe that
very young children receive a mere child-rearing service, whereas older primary school
students receive both a child-rearing service and concentrated homework supervision.
Only a small number of students were receiving remedial tuition. Children in upper
primary school forms, regardless of ability, were reported to be receiving homework
tutoring for all subjects. Students in the secondary school were said to be receiving
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substantial individual subject tuition, for instance in mathematics, English and Chinese
(Ho & Kwong, 2008; Vong, 2011a). Irregularities occurring in private tutoring centres,
such as some private tutorial centres found to be operating without a licence, and a child
that had been physically beaten by a tutor had also been reported (Macao Daily, 2009,
2014a). The Macao Daily (2013) has alleged that some private tutorial centres operate in
very poor physical conditions and that they constitute a physical hazard for the students.
In view of the above, the DSEJ has been accused of poor supervision and regulation of the
private supplementary tutoring sector.

The regulation of supplementary tutoring by the Macao SAR Government

In his discussion of the Macao primary school education curriculum, Koo (2002)
highlights the long tradition in Macao schools of operating autonomously and being self-
managing. Schools are free to choose which subject syllabus to follow, how students are to
be grouped, and how lessons are to be delivered in the classroom. A major emphasis for
students in all schools is the need to perform well and achieve high academic grades. Most
schools assess students via profiles of marks in very regularly imposed subject
examinations, and a large range of subjects is crammed into a very tight schedule and
densely packaged school timetable.
Foreseeing that students might have difficulty in coping with heavy learning demands,
the Portuguese Macao Government began tentatively to lay down guidelines and
regulations for schools in 1994. It urged all schools to provide learning assistance
and extra tutoring for low achieving students. The Guided Framework of the infant and
Primary Education Curriculum was enacted in 1994 to oversee the normal remedial
teaching offered to slow learners in the school (Macao Government, 1994). The
government also regulates after-school, homework supervision classes run by schools.
One aim is to ensure that all students joining homework supervision classes are, wherever
possible, looked after by qualified teachers skilled in dealing with behavioural problems.
It also recommends that remedial tuition be delivered in a safe and secure, hygienic
environment (Macao Government, 1994).
To add force to its recommendations, the Portuguese Macao Government in 1998
launched the first official law regulating private tutoring provision. The law entitled
Regulating Private Supplementary Pedagogic Supporting Centres defined various forms of
practice for private tutorial centres, and proposed recommendations about the availability
of self-study rooms as well as tuition and homework supervision in “Supplementary
Pedagogic Supporting Centres”. These centres needed to be licensed by the DSEJ and
 512 T.S.P. Li and B.C. Choi

inspected by Housing and Fire departments to ensure that they are located in suitable and
safe conditions for students. The minimum academic qualification required for a tutor of
primary school students was completion of junior secondary education (Macao
Government, 1998).
Following the birth of the Macao SAR Government in 1999, the DSEJ carried on the
task of refining and enforcing regulations for shadow education. The first step was to
amend the 1998 regulation to ensure that all private tutoring centres are situated at ground
floor level with direct road access, and that any located above ground floor level are fire-
and sound-proof, well insulated and safe. In addition, all centre coordinators and tutors
were required to hold a certificate of good citizenship, a mental health certificate and
educational qualification documents to guarantee the quality of any tutoring service
offered. A distinction was made between small-scale and large-scale private tutoring
centres. This allowed a degree of flexibility for private tutorial centres or individuals
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dealing with fewer than six students at any one time and fewer than 20 students across the
school day. The smaller providers are no longer required to be licensed by the DSEJ
(Macao SAR Government, 2002).
After the impressive performance of Macao and Hong Kong students in PISA 2003,
the Macao Government invited experts from the Hong Kong PISA Centre to carry out a
large-scale study of parents’ views on the need for education reform in Macao in 2006.
Based on the findings about parents’ views on shadow education, the team was
commissioned to investigate the actual prevalence of shadow education in Macao in 2007,
which culminated in the HKPISA Centre 2008 report. In the light of this report, the DSEJ
formed a team to revise the regulation of supplementary pedagogic supporting centres.
In 2012, draft legislation on the licensing and regulation of such centres was under public
consultation, and existing laws and regulations were formalized about tuition fees and
licensing, catering services, closing times, the duties of centre coordinators, the
qualifications and duties of tutors and so on (DSEJ, 2012).
The above actions of the DSEJ reflect in detail the determination of the SAR
Government to accept responsibility for supervising the running of shadow education in
Macao. As well as legally regulating private supplementary tutoring services, the DSEJ
encouraged the launch of different services to ease the learning and study problems of
many primary and secondary students. In 1997, the DSEJ implemented the “Phoning
service of homework guidance” under the auspices of a Government youth centre of the
Youth Affairs Department (Sou, 2007). This youth service project gave special training to
youth volunteers to provide homework guidance. From that time onwards, students have
been able to enjoy high quality supplementary tutoring free of charge, in order to ease the
financial burden of parents and to reinforce the caring atmosphere of the society in Macao
(Sou, 2007; DSEJ, 2013b). In addition, the DSEJ has set up a special website3 for parents
and the public to find useful information about private supplementary tutoring centres to
orient their choices. These include data on licensed and registered centres, on small private
tutoring services, on the available public and private study rooms for students to use, and a
list of websites that offer information about after-school homework supervision services
offered in Macao schools (DSEJ, 2013c, 2013d, 2013e).

Macao SAR Government policy on shadow education: the way ahead4

Many of the shadow education developments in Macao that have been discussed above
share commonalities and differences with societies in East Asia. Perhaps one distinctive
feature for Macao is that private schools are permitted to operate fee-charging after-school
 Asia Pacific Journal of Education 513

homework supervision classes. Since the establishment of the Macao SAR government
in 1999, the DSEJ has assumed a more prominent role in overseeing and supervising
the regulation of all shadow education provision in Macao. It has been introducing
new laws to deal with the changing need for shadow education in the territory, as
perceived by students, parents and the wider society. The operation of large-scale private
supplementary tutoring centres is now under strict control and all centres are required to
observe relevant laws and regulations on safety and the educational qualifications of
tutors. Information and guidance support are also provided to parents and students as the
consumers of private tutoring, such as the website and phoning service of homework
guidance. Some youth centres run by the DSEJ have also set up a homework tutoring
service and homework supervision service for low-income families (DSEJ, 2014e).
Moreover, the DSEJ is reconstructing the basic education school curriculum in the hope of
changing the traditional style of teaching in Macao schools. In short, the Macao
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government now has a clearer policy on the regulation of supplementary tutoring within
and outside schools.
Responding to government regulations and advice in 2009, the owners of private
supplementary tutoring centres set up the Association of Macao Private Supplementary
Pedagogic Supporting Centres to protect their own rights as well as to voice their own
ideas (Macao Government Printer, 2009). In 2012, the Association announced that it
would arrange specific training for tutors to raise the standard of tutoring provision
offered. They would also seek to become involved in social benefit events to raise the
profile of the services they provide (Macao Daily, 2012a). This reflects the sincerity of
the private tutoring providers to comply with the necessary regulations. However, the
suspension of the services of one well-publicized and unregistered private supplementary
tutoring centre and the case of a child being beaten up in an unregistered private
care-taking centre in 2014 (Macao Daily, 2014a) suggest that the DSEJ may still have
insufficient personnel to carry out blanket inspections of private tutorial centres.
In fact, the supervising and regulation of private tutorial centres is at present still being
carried out by a small group of education officers in the Continuing Education Division of
the DSEJ.
Proposals for further legislation about the licensing and regulation of private
supplementary tutoring centres imply that there are still considerable variations in the
quality of private tutoring services in Macao. The Macao SAR Government is also
challenged by the task of supervising and regulating every small-scale private tutoring
provider. The government may need to reconsider and reflect on the adequacy of their
efforts so far, and to reflect on the relevance of the continued use by parents of the shadow
education system in Macao. Is the focus on provision in the community rather than in
school the most appropriate strategy? Moreover, are the high failure rate of Macao
students in internal and external school examinations and the high incidence of shadow
education consumption not indicators of failure of school education?
Although the Macao SAR Government has made some progress in its efforts to
regulate the private supplementary tutoring industry in Macao, there is room for a robust
analysis of and thinking about the issue and on the provision of quality mainstream
education. Some of the current approaches are only passively taking account of failings in
the private tutoring business. In order to resolve matters, more thought should be given to
advancing the effectiveness of classroom teaching and students learning. The government
should act decisively in regulating the out-of-school tuition industry that has developed in
Macao, but also explore how parents and the wider society can best be involved in helping
all students learn and achieve in schools.
 514 T.S.P. Li and B.C. Choi

Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Professor Mark Bray, who has the attitudes and
the substance of a genius: he continually and convincingly challenged and enriched my ideas in
preparing this manuscript. I am also truly indebted and thankful to my life-long teacher, 杜泰利, for
valuable comments and language polishing.

Notes
1. In 1966, the “1-2-3 incident” (after the Chinese styling of the date, December 3rd) in Macao
witnessed the organized resistance from mainland groups when the Macao government
attempted to close down a school sympathetic to the radical Cultural Revolution political
movement (see Adamson & Li, 2004, p. 40). In 1974, the Portuguese revolution took place.
2. A “through-train” school is the linking of a kindergarten, a primary and a secondary school. K3
pupils of a “through-train” school may proceed directly to the linked primary school and then
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secondary school when they finish Primary 6.

3. Parents can find out all the licensed and registered private supplementary tutoring centres
through the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau Website: http://portal.dsej.gov.mo/
webdsejspace/internet/category/parent/inter_main_page.jsp#inter_main_page.jsp?id¼8433
4. The first author has been studying the development of Macao education since 1993 while he was
lecturing in the Faculty of Education, University of Macau. His present job duty also requires
him to have a close look into the policies of non-tertiary education in Macao.

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