Macao Jingyang Secondary School, Macao, China

Introduction: As a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, Macao’s educational system has undergone profound reform and steady development since its return to the motherland. Centered on free compulsory education, Macao’s education system covers all stages from preschool to tertiary education and has formed a diversified school-running pattern composed of government schools, government-subsidized private schools, and fully private schools. Within this multi-dimensional educational system, Chinese language education occupies a core strategic position. It functions not only as a foundational subject for cultivating students’ basic language abilities but also as an essential cultural carrier for inheriting Chinese civilization and shaping national and cultural identity.

Relevant studies on the construction of primary and secondary textbook systems in Macao indicate that Chinese language education has long been prioritized in local educational policies. In the early post-handover stage, Macao gradually established standardized compilation norms and approval mechanisms for Chinese textbooks through phased policy arrangements of “limited recognition” and “initial institutional construction”. Distinct from inland educational practices, Macao’s Chinese education presents prominent localized and multicultural characteristics. It adheres to the inheritance of excellent traditional Chinese culture while fully adapting to Macao’s multicultural social context, constructing a unique bilingual and multicultural learning environment for local adolescents.

In terms of curriculum design, Macao’s junior high school Chinese curriculum takes core literacy cultivation as its fundamental goal, emphasizing the integrated development of linguistic competence, cultural understanding, aesthetic appreciation, and critical thinking. This literacy-oriented educational goal runs through the entire process of curriculum design, classroom teaching, and academic evaluation, endowing Chinese education with an irreplaceable foundational status in Macao’s basic education system. Furthermore, with the continuous deepening of cross-strait and Hong Kong-Macao educational exchanges, Macao’s Chinese education has become an important bridge for cross-regional cultural communication, broadening students’ international vision and consolidating their cultural foundation.

Accordingly, an in-depth investigation into the developmental background, operational characteristics, practical dilemmas and optimization strategies of Macao’s junior high school Chinese education provides solid theoretical support for understanding localized Chinese education under multicultural contexts, and offers practical references for promoting high-quality, standardized and characteristic development of regional Chinese education.