Macau, China, Dec. 12, 2025 (Lusa) - The Polytechnic University of Macau announced on Friday an agreement with the National University of Timor-Leste for the exchange of students and teachers.
In a statement, the Polytechnic University of Macau (UPM) said that the cooperation protocol also provides for strengthening ties in the area of sharing academic resources and training qualified bilingual staff in Chinese and Portuguese.
Both jurisdictions have Portuguese as one of their official languages, along with Chinese in the case of the semi-autonomous region of Macao, and Tetum in the case of Timor-Leste.
The agreement was signed by the vice-chancellor of UPM, Vivian Lei Ngan Lin, and the chancellor of the National University of Timor-Leste (UNTL), João Soares Martins, on the sidelines of the 15th conference of the Forum for the Management of Higher Education in Portuguese Language Countries and Regions (Forges).
The annual meeting of Portuguese-speaking universities and polytechnics took place in the capital of Timor-Leste, Dili, and was jointly organised by UNTL, the Catholic University of Timor-Leste São João Paulo II and the University of Dili.
The Forges conference, whose theme was "The Promotion of Scientific Research in Portuguese in the Face of Global Challenges," took place between 24th and 27th November.
During the event, the deputy director of the Faculty of Languages and Translation at UPM, Joaquim Carvalho, gave a presentation in which he invited students and teachers from Portuguese-speaking countries to engage in exchanges with Macao.
The UPM delegation also took the opportunity on that occasion to discuss exchange and academic cooperation projects with the Portuguese Catholic University, the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (Brazil) and the University of Luanda.
In November 2024, during the 14th Forges conference in Macao, João Soares Martins told Lusa that UNTL wanted the support of the Portuguese Institute of the Orient (IPOR) to begin certifying proficiency in the Portuguese language.
Also in the Chinese region, UNTL and the University of Macau (UM) signed a cooperation agreement on Monday that provides for "more opportunities for teacher and student mobility," the dean said.
The Timorese delegation visited the Department of Portuguese, the State Reference Laboratory for Quality Research in Chinese Medicine and the Faculty of Law at UM, where some of the current UNTL lecturers were trained.
"It would be good if the University of Macau could provide some places for our lecturers to continue their courses, both master's and doctoral," said Soares Martins.
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