📖 About the university

The Higher Institute for Public Security Forces of Macau (ESFSM) is a specialised government higher education institution established on 4 July 1988 under Decree No. 57/88/M, created during Macau's transition period following the 1987 Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration to localise and professionalise the territory's security services. Its predecessor was the Security Forces Comprehensive Training Centre, set up in 1978, reflecting a longer history of organised officer training in Macau's public security sector. The Institute trains officers for Macau's police, customs, correctional services, and fire and rescue services, combining higher-education academic study with the practical and physical training required of uniformed public-security professionals. In 1995, Decree No. 5/95/M reorganised its structure and mission, and a further reform under Administrative Regulation No. 26/2019 in August 2019 updated its governance, introducing a Board of Trustees and an Academic and Teaching Committee alongside its teaching departments. ESFSM is recognised as one of Macau's official higher education institutions, and it offers structured coursework on subjects such as national security and policing alongside operational training, teaching mainly in Chinese and Portuguese. As a specialised institution training Macau's own security officers rather than a general international student body, it is best understood as the territory's dedicated academy for future police, customs, correctional, and fire-service leadership.

🎯 Fields of study

🏛️ Colleges & schools

🌆 About Macau

Macau is a Special Administrative Region on the western side of the Pearl River estuary, a former Portuguese enclave that returned to China in 1999 and is today the only place in the country where casino gaming is legal. Compact and densely populated, it is famous for a UNESCO-listed historic centre where baroque churches, cobbled squares, and Chinese temples stand side by side, most iconically the Ruins of St. Paul's. The territory has a humid subtropical climate with hot, humid summers and mild winters, and Cantonese, Portuguese, and increasingly English and Mandarin are all in use. Its economy, built on tourism and the integrated resorts of the Cotai Strip, gives it one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world and funds generous public services and student scholarships. Macau is linked to Hong Kong and Zhuhai by the record-breaking Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and has its own international airport on Taipa island. For an international student, Macau offers a uniquely East-meets-West Sino-Portuguese culture, small class sizes, strong tourism and hospitality programmes, and a safe, walkable environment.

💰 Fees & costs

💡 General estimates for international students in China; they vary by major and university, and the official figure is always on the university website.

🛂 Visa requirements by nationality

These are the general steps for the China student visa (X1/X2); details vary by the Chinese embassy in your country.