Macau Public Security Forces Academy Director Hoi Sio Iong said Wednesday that the higher education institution will launch a master’s degree course in policing, after the Tertiary Education System Law takes effect next month.
Hoi made the remarks while delivering a speech during a seminar on the “Innovation and Development in the Policing Education” at the academy in Coloane.
The seminar marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the academy. Local scholars, specialists and police personnel and their counterparts from Hong Kong and the mainland were invited to participate in the two-day seminar which ends today.
According to The Macau Post Daily the Legislative Assembly (AL) passed the government-initiated bill regulating the city’s tertiary education sector, slated to come into effect one year after its promulgation in the Official Gazette (BO), during a plenary session in late July last year. The new law was promulgated in the gazette in early August last year.
The Tertiary Education System Law will replace a decree-law regulating the city’s tertiary education sector dating back to 1991 when Macau was still under Portuguese administration.
The new law allows all higher education institutions in the city to grant master’s degrees and doctoral degrees, a change from the current situation in which only universities are allowed to grant such degrees. Currently, the other higher education institutions are only allowed to run bachelor’s degree courses.
In his speech, Hoi said that after the new law comes into effect next month, the academy will adjust its organisational structure and programmes – by amending the regulation on the academy’s operation.
Hoi said that after amending the academy’s regulation, it would launch a master’s degree course in policing, adding that the post-graduate degree aims to help upgrade the academic level of the city’s policing studies.
Hoi pointed out that the academy was established in 1988, with the mission of training personnel for the city’s Public Security Forces and providing existing public security personnel with further training, with the aim of providing residents with better public security services.
Hoi also noted that since the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) in December 1999, his academy has trained 4,389 police officers and firefighters and 159 senior police officers and firefighters, who, according to Hoi, carry out the important task of maintaining Macau’s public security stability.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of yesterday’s opening ceremony of the seminar, Hoi said that the academy was planning to improve the facilities on its campus, adding that his staff were also studying the feasibility of building an on-campus swimming pool.
Concerning the planned launch of master’s degree courses, Hoi noted that the new law requires all higher education institutions to have a university council. He pointed out that the academy currently does not have such a council. He said that consequently the academy could only run master’s degree courses after amending its regulation.
Hoi said that he expected the master’s degree courses to be launched as early as in the academic year 2019/2020. He was quick to add that it would depend on whether the amendments to the academy’s regulation have been completed by that time.
