The adult education courses offered by the Centre for Continuing Education and Special Programmes (CCS) of the University of Macau (UMac) have become increasingly popular.

These courses include a series of English-for-specific-purpose courses such as English for Telecommunication and Immigration Policy and English for Effective Office Operation. Other courses available are Diploma of Business Administration and Banking and IBM multimedia online courses.

"The courses offered by CCS could be of great value to those who wish to improve their career prospects, advance their skills and knowledge and keep abreast of the latest development in their own fields," Director of CCS Leong Man Wai says.

About 7,000 students enrolled for the CCS courses last year, most of them are working adults.

Leong says that CCS also has selected career referral services for students who want to find a better job. When companies have job vacanies, CCS would arrange job interviews between the companies and qualified students.

Dick Lai, a student of CCS feels that the courses offered by CCS are very useful and it is good that the class hours do not conflict with his working hours. However, he says that the location is a bit far.

When asked about the requirements for admission into CCS programmes, Leong says that one would need to be a senior high school graduate with one-year working experience. However, other special requirements would be needed for some IT programmes and diploma programmes.

CCS aims to promote "lifelong learning" and serve the Macau community by "providing sufficient opportunities and variety to adult learners to meet their needs," Leong stresses.

According to Leong, lecturers of CCS are from various faculties of UMac, or from other higher education institutions in Macau. Some of them are government officials, professionals from industries or visiting professors from China, Taiwan, France, Australia and other countries.

Leong outlines the future goals of CCS. They include "to sustain the position as the largest continuing education academic unit among the higher education institutions in Macau; to enhance the accreditation and recognition of our programmes, to further develop online learning with industry parties; to act as links among China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas countries in the area of continuing education and to continue to develop more diversified programmes for our learners."

Information about CCS can be obtained through local newspapers, TV programmes and the CCS website.

For further details, there is a CCS Prospectus 2001/02 available from the office of CCS or the International Library of UMac.