The opening ceremony for the 2012/2013 academic year of City University of Macau (hereinafter referred to as ‘CityU’ ) was held at Macau Tower at 3pm on September 21 (Friday). Many guests, such as the Vice-Chairman of the Board of the university, Mr. Wu, Zaiquan, and Rector of the university, Prof. Yan, Zexian, together with more than 1000 teachers, students and parents attended the ceremony. Scholarships upon admission were also awarded to excellent freshmen at the ceremony to motivate and encourage them.

This year, the recruitment for the CityU is satisfying, no matter in Macao or in the Mainland China. Both the quantity and quality of applications has sharply increased. The scale of enrollment this year is more than three times larger than the one from last year, with over 60% of currently on-campus full-time students is from Macau. The increased number of local students helps to implement the goal of CityU to be based on Macau and to contribute to the society. With the approval of National Ministry of Education of PRC, CityU has been recruiting fulltime students for postgraduate and doctoral programmes from the Mainland China since 2004, while full-time undergraduates recruitment started this year. Thus, CityU has become the third university in Macau, besides University of Macau and Macau University of Science and Technology, to be able to recruit students in all levels (bachelor, master, doctor) from the Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Although it is the first year for CityU to recruit full-time undergraduates in the Mainland China, CityU has attracted wide concern and the amount of applications was almost eight times more than the original recruitment plan. This does not only pour positive energy into the higher education sector of Macau, but also shows the successful implementation of CityU ’s strategy, namely rename, restructure, transformation and promotion(RRTP).

As a comprehensive and practical university with multi-disciplines in the local society, CityU has been striving for the enhancement of quality, uniqueness and development. Through the continuous improvement of facilities and teaching quality, CityU will cultivate more professional talents for the community.

In Prof. Yan’s speech, he appreciated the support and care from all sectors of the community. Besides that, he stated that CityU would elaborate the unique cultural background of Macau where east meets west and make use of the advantages from the policy of “One country, two systems”. CityU plans to build itself, in the next decade, into a medium-sized, fully open and comprehensive university with a high degree of internationalization, distinctive regional characteristics and high standards. Prof. Yan encouraged freshmen to strive for knowledge and persistence, in order to prove academic qualification with ability, and to develop profession into career. He also wished all students to develop themselves to be innovative, all-round, liberal and practical.

The ceremony ended in warm and touching moments when freshmen and their families were all excited taking photos, to record this precious moment.