In 2006 the Macau government made senior secondary education both mandatory and free to all residents, thereby expanding three years of universal secondary education to six years. The effects of this change to Macau’s educational system are not only visible within the increasing number of senior secondary graduates over the past twenty years since the 1999 handover to Chinese administration; effects can also be found in the linguistic ecology of the territory. There has been a slight decline in the number of Cantonese speakers between the ages of 10 and 19 (roughly the age of secondary students surveyed in the Macau censuses and by-censuses), but this decline might be related to recent increases in the number of ‘foreign students’ and non-resident workers from the People’s Republic of China. Most notably, 29.1% of junior secondary-aged students and 44.2% of senior secondary-aged students claimed an ability to use English in the 2016 by-census, and these proportions show consistent sustained increase over the past twenty years. In 2017 the Macau government adopted sweeping reform of the secondary (junior and secondary) curricula which specify intended learning outcomes for three languages—Chinese, English and Portuguese—when used as either mediums of instruction (MOI) or taught as second languages (SL). Analysis of the features of all the language curricula suggest the central importance given to Chinese and English within the curriculum revisions. Portuguese remains an MOI and an SL in the territory, but to a diminishing number of students and with reduced importance in curriculum revisions.