Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | August 2010 26 Macau Policy T here is a commonly held belief, expressed on occasion in this magazine, that Macau residents are, educationally speaking, underachievers. It seems that’s not strictly accurate. In 2006, Macau was in the top eight countries or regions for performance in mathematics among 15 year olds, according to a triennial study by the Organisation for Economic Co- operationandDevelopment(OECD).Perhaps that’s the real reason so many Macau school leavers want to become casino dealers. This achievement wasn’t singular. In the 2003 edition of the OECD study known as PISA—the Programme for International Student Assessment—Macau was in the top five for science and the top six for something called ‘problem solving’. One problem that the next generation of Macau’s leaders will have to solve is not so much educational underachievement (the territory’s young people clearly do rather well, especially in the sciences, when opportunities are available) as a lack of a strong tradition for ongoing education. In the first quarter of this year, only 9.5% of Macau high school graduates were in tertiary education (i.e. study beyond the age of 17 or 18). In Hong Kong, 18.5% of 17 to 20 year olds took a first year, first-degree course in higher education during the academic year 2009-10, according to Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. The gap between Macau and Hong Kong is even more marked in primary and secondary education. A total of 31.7% of Macau residents haven’t gone beyond primary level education, according to figures released in Q1 2010 by DSEC, Macau’s Statistics and Census Service. One would hope that this figure is an historical anomaly that will be reduced as social conditions improve in Macau. And yet the percentage leaving education with only primary instruction actually went up year on year in Macau in the first quarter of 2010 compared to Q1 2009. A further 8.4% either never went to school or School of Hard Knocks Forcing casino operators to use local construction workers won’t solve Macau’s labour issues Educational attainment in Macau 2007 2008 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Highest education attained (%) No schooling/Pre-primary education 8.9 8.3 9.1 8.5 10.5 8.7 8.5 8.4 Primary education 27.9 26.4 25.8 23.5 30.4 25.9 22.8 31.7 Junior middle education 31.6 27.4 30.4 34.0 27.9 29.0 30.9 30.7 Senior middle education 21.9 22.1 21.5 22.1 19.7 19.8 24.8 19.6 Tertiary education 9.7 15.7 13.2 11.8 11.5 16.6 13.0 9.5 Source: Macao Economic Bulletin/DSEC Degree of scepticism—Macau residents aren’t rushing to upgrade their skills.