Macao's public treasury is to spend 1.03 billion patacas (US$162.5 million) on a 15-year free education program which is to start from the 2007/2008 school term, local media reported Wednesday.

 

The Macao Post Daily quoted Sou Chio Fai, director of the Education and Youth Affair Bureau, as saying that the expenditure will cover the school-fee subsidies to students attending private schools that have not joined the government's free education network.

 

The government is also to launch a system offering teachers having worked for over 10 years a sabbatical of up to one year to attend training courses, the official was quoted by the newspaper.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2007)