1. The Politics of Teacher
Professionalism in Macao
AAS Conference 2012 Toronto
Wai-Kwok Benson Wong
Department of Government &
International Studies
Hong Kong Baptist University
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2. Introduction
 In approaching the education system of a place, the
role & status of teachers is of salient importance
 Politics of teacher professionalism
– Being instrumental:
 delivering, indoctrinating and interpreting state’s ideology and
belief by schooling
 qualification, inducements, competence
– Being political: acknowledging and upholding autonomy,
recognizing/resisting official intervention & manipulation in
the name of “professionalism”
– Teacher identity: official discourse vs. subjectivity
 Not a taken-for-granted understanding (e.g., replaceable
occupation vs. profession)
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3. Macao’s context
 Underdevelopment of teacher
professionalism
 Myths’ clarification of teacher
professionalism
= improving qualification and pedagogies via
training and upgrading?
= improving material incentives?
 Teachers being as an instrument of fostering
the training of students: professional laborers
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4. Macao’s context
 Cheng, Wong, Sweeting, Pan & Wang:
– Unique status in society & profession
– Fight for professional benefits & independence – teacher union
– Statutory autonomous organization w/ institutionalization &
legal status – teachers council
– However, very few teachers recognize this “radical” aspect (ref.
#5)
 Teacher professionalism in Chinese
characteristics???
– It is a “western” concept?
– Marginalize autonomy & subjectivity + buttress moral &
instrumental role plus material incentives (ref: slide#5)
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5. 5

6. Obstacles
1. Absence of an independent professional
teacher organization (in forms of either union or
council)
2. Absence of teacher identity: “teaching staff” vs.
“teacher”
3. Powerlessness in the policy-making process
and school context
4. Lack of social understanding: schools, parents
& mass media
5. The presence of the gambling industry
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7. Teachers’ subjectivity & Professionalism under the 10-year
Plan for the Development of the Non-higher Education (2011-
20)
 Education is the milestone of social progress and the
crucial point of talent training. Given the limited
natural resources of Macao, the construction of
human resources must serve as a foundation for the
long-term development in the future by developing a
high-quality education, training talents, and
upgrading the overall quality of the residents, and
enhancing competitiveness…. (Direcção dos
Serviços de Educação e Juventude, January 2011,
p. 1).
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8. Teachers’ subjectivity & Professionalism under the 10-year
Plan for the Development of the Non-higher Education (2011-
20)
 “education reforms serve to economic
development”
 proposal is not aimed to introduce any
fundamental changes in the existing education
system, but serves as a subordinate role aiming
to maintain the economic strength
 the term “teachers” (Jiaoshi) does not appear in
the entire document; instead, “teaching staff”
(Jiaoxu Renyuan) is deployed: Teachers’
subjectivity is legitimately deprived by de-titling
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9. Teachers’ subjectivity & Professionalism under the 10-year Plan
for the Development of the Non-higher Education (2011-20)
 teachers have no role in school administration.
In section 3.4 of the paper entitled “Excelling
School System”; section 3.5 named “improving
educational leadership and internal management
of school”; and section 3.6 denoted
“strengthening educational quality for
protection”, while such stakeholders as
government, schools & parents are included in
school setting, teachers are intentionally not
included in school management, administration
and leadership, thereby disempowering teachers
in personal, professional and political
dimensions.
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10. The Consultation Paper of the Ten-year Plan for the
Development of the Non-higher Education, 2011-2020:
Background Information for Reference
 the last three sections of the entire document
are about views and expectations of Macau’s
parents (p. 14), school management (p. 15)
and space and environment of schools (p.
16), views and expectations of teachers are
surprisingly not mentioned and included.
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11. The Consultation Paper of the Ten-year Plan for the
Development of the Non-higher Education, 2011-2020:
Background Information for Reference
 “actively defending the autonomy of teachers in
teaching” (code number 004_54, dated 4 March 2011)
 “apart from the government, school, teaching staff, the
society should encourage the talent to join the teacher
profession so as to strengthen the teaching team,
teachers should acquire the appropriate social status.
Parents and students should place the importance of
teachers in discharging the teaching duties, care
teachers so that teachers should get the due respect,
and a respectful, appreciative and trustful teachers’
team should be constructed” (code number 004_75,
dated 4 March 2011).
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12. CEAM vs Civil Power
 (The association) wishes to (revise the plan) according to
the Framework of Mid- and Long-term Educational Reform,
Development, and Planning of the Nation (2010-2020) and
coordination with the Twelfth Five-year Plan” (The Chinese
Education Association, 2 March 2011).
 “the ultimate goal of education is narrowed to serve the
economic purpose. … (the government) needs to clarify the
fundamental meaning of education so that students (can)
have moral obligations and care about society; that is the
meaning of educating the people to be kind people (Jiaoren
Shenren). (However), we can only see based on the text
that the policies are economic-oriented, and are not planned
from students’ perspective” (The Civil Power, 29 March
2011).
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13. Conclusion
 “Education is political” (Sachs, 2003, p. 71):
– “What counts as curriculum knowledge, how
schools and education programmes are
resourced, who has influenced in the
development of policy agendas, are all
dimensions of the political nature of education
policy and practices”
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14. Conclusion
 “Teacher education is political, both internally and
externally” (Ibid., p. 72):
– “to struggle in the various arenas where policy is
determined, to wrest back and then maintain some greater
degree of autonomy in their curriculum work. This will
require the capacity to recognize the way curriculum
operates, the critical skills to uncover hegemonic
constructions of teaching as an apolitical activity, and the
will to work collectively, through union and professional
associations, to do something about it. It requires political
understanding including knowledge about how and were
educational policy is shaped, who to target in political
campaigns, and how education unions and political parties
work. And it demands a significant array of political skills,
including the capacity to negotiate, advocate, lobby,
communicate, and organise in the wider political arena”
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15. Conclusion
 pseudo-professionalism can be seen in the MSAR and it
arguably is proliferating with the enforcement of official
hegemony, governmental manipulation and cooptation of
educational groups, and weakness of the teaching
profession itself.
 The top-down mode of educational policy making in Macao
with insufficient inputs from teachers will have to be rectified
so that substantial teacher professionalism will be achieved
and enforced for the protection of not only the improvement
of the entire educational system, and the fulfillment of official
goals of improving the local talents in society and sustaining
and holisticizing economic development, but also the
interests and rights of teachers in school, organizational and
political settings in the long run.
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