The Centre for Portuguese Studies (CPCLP) of the Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM) has been providing summer training courses for Portuguese-language teachers of higher education institutions in the mainland to meet the high demand of Portuguese-language learning there over the years, IPM said in a statement yesterday.

Due to the COVID-19 situation, the training courses this summer will be carried out online and free of charge to Portuguese language teachers in Asia, the statement said.

The statement did not elaborate on when the programme was launched.

The language programme aims to promote the development of Macau’s role as an international Portuguese-language training centre and a training base of Chinese-Portuguese bilingual talents, and assist in the training of Portuguese-language teachers and enhance their teaching ability, the statement noted.

According to the statement, in the past years, the CPCLP has successfully held approximately 30 training courses for higher education institutions, with a total of 400 enrolled learners and more than 600 hours of training.

June 30 to July 15

According to the statement, each topic includes three lectures. Interested learners can apply for one or more topics in accordance with their own interests and needs.

The application period for the programme is open from now until June 21, the statement noted.