High school student in Macao participate in a training camp for flag raisers during an event organized by the People's Liberation Army Garrison in Macao and the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau on May 11. Photo: IC

Flying China's national flag will increase the sense of patriotism and awareness of the national identity among students and teachers, educational professionals in Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) said, as schools are prepared for the patriotic event.

In response to foreign media reports saying that some Portuguese-language schools in Macao don't have enough space to raise the national flag, Cheong Man Fai, an official with the Department of Youth of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, told the Macao media outlet Exmoo News on Saturday that all schools in Macao are ready to fly and raise the national flag.  

Some schools in Macao don't have space for setting a proper flagpole, but they will find a way to fly the national flag, said Cheong. 

"Raising the Chinese national flag and singing the national anthem is a widely welcomed activity among teachers and students in Macao. Such activities arouse their sense of national pride and inspire love for the country," Chen Buqian, deputy president of the Haojiang Middle School in Macao, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

According to Chen, the flag-raising ceremony has become a regular event at many schools, including missionary schools and public schools in Macao. 

Raising the national flag every week, which takes place usually on Monday morning, was already in practice even before Macao adopted the administrative regulation, Chen noted. 

Macao officially implemented the national flag and national anthem law administrative regulations in June, which requires that local primary and middle schools as well as universities to fly or raise the national flag, the Exmoo News reported in February. 

It is not mandatory for everyone to sing the national anthem at the flag-raising ceremony, said Cheong but noted that many students have been seen spontaneously singing the national anthem at many events in the past.

In May, more than 260 high school students from 30 schools in Macao participated in a training camp for flag raisers, an event organized by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Garrison in Macao, news portal js7tv.cn reported. 

Since 2016, the PLA Macao Garrison and the SAR government have jointly held training camps for high schools four times, training nearly 900 flag raisers at high schools in Macao.