PART I – AN OVERALL ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Table XXXI Actions PRODEP III 51 - indicators showing the physical and financial execution

(2000-2003) Physical Data

People on Trainer-Training Actions

Financial Exec. (Approved in 2000/03)

Action 4.1 Competency

Recognition, Validation and Certification 1 848 18 872 735 €

Physical Data

People on Trainer-Training Actions

Financial Exec. (Approved in 2000/03)

Action 4.2 Diversified Short-Term

Actions 302 8 924 431 €

Physical Data

Teaching staff

covered

Non-teaching staff covered

Parents and equivalent covered

Financial Exec.

(Approved in 2000/03) Action 5.1

Continuous and Specialised Training

255 742 89 784 195 165 330 643 €

Physical Data

Trainees covered

Courses held Classes

Financial Exec.

(Approved in 2000/03)

Action 5.2 Complements to Initial

Training

29 971 741 880 20 370 484 €

Source: Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III, Ministry of Education (2004).

The qualification of education and training professionals who are capable of monitoring innovation has also been a priority at the level of the intervention of the Directorate-General of Vocational Training.

The implementation of a new form of secondary education curricular organisation and management 52, and, within the same ambit, the investment in achieving greater pupil participation in the offer of vocationally qualifying paths, mean that it is necessary to privilege teacher and trainer training in such a way as to facilitate:

adherence to the principle of making curricula more flexible and organising them in modules;

the success of significant learning, both at the level of the complete education of pupils, and as regards their successful insertion into the working world;

the relationship between learning and the needs of the business fabric, within the context of a knowledge-driven economy.

The training of adult education and training professionals and its supervision are intended to give rise to methods and procedures that abide by a set of pedagogical action guidelines, including:

recognise other times and places of learning, and see adults as socio-cultural subjects with accumulated experiences that make adult life a training-rich period;

attach greater value to the things adults do know, even if that know-how takes the shape of practical cognition and is expressed in a language other than that required by formal education;

51 PRODEP III — Programa de Desenvolvimento Educativo para Portugal (Programme for the Educational

Development in Portugal III). 52 For more information about the revision of secondary education, see Part I, 1.2.3, 1.3.9, 1.4.3 and 2.4.

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be flexible enough to change processes during the training path, in accordance with the needs imposed by the context and the anxieties and collective needs of the group of trainees and trainers;

consider that the learning process is not just a formal one, but that people learn with emotion, with the development of sensibilities and with affection;

create and use a means of assessment as a reflexive process, not as a vertical process, but a solidary and democratic one in which each participant takes the conduct and control of his/her evolution into his/her own hands, from a perspective of autonomy and the self-management of learning;

redeem the adults’ origins, history and culture by seeing them as a foundation stone on which to construct their owners’ motivation, strengthen their identity and expand their education and training;

consider that like the adult trainees, the pedagogical team continuously learns from this process and also needs to adhere to the lifelong learning movement.

2.3.2. THE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

The national priority that has been given to the development of the information and knowledge-driven society is articulated with the European Union’s e-Europe 2002 Action Plan and receives financial backing from Community funds. To this end, various sectoral policies are also being articulated with one another and have gradually being taking the transversality of this objective on board.

Within the overall framework of the Lifelong Learning Strategy, the national policy has established a number of priority axes for intervention in the information and communication technology field:

the promotion of accessibilities and contents;

the pursuit of scientific and technological research targeted at the information society;

the digitalisation of the Public Administration (Info 2005);

the development and implementation of an e-government strategy 53;

the generalisation of Internet access.

Another of the strategy major objectives is the training and certification of competencies in relation to the use of information and communication technologies. The fact is that the knowledge society calls for special competencies in the use of information and demands a permanent capacity to adapt and learn. In this context the Diploma in Basic Information Technology Competencies, which was created in 2001 and addresses user competencies from the perspective of a sequential, modular philosophy, seeks to prepare both young people and adults for the challenges of the information society and the knowledge-driven economy.

Thus, the idea is that the use of a system for formally recognising and validating basic competencies will help the Portuguese population to become familiar with the new information technologies faster than it otherwise would, and will lead to both an accelerated and generalised

53 Council of Ministers Resolution nº 135/2002, dated 20th November 2002.

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increase in the use of the Internet for civic reasons and the pursuit of a strategy for achieving greater social cohesion and fighting info-exclusion 54.

The overall framework of the Curricular Revision of Secondary Education, which is scheduled for implementation as of the 2004/2005 academic year, sets the guidelines that the education system is expected to adopt in order to offer an appropriate response to the new technological challenges posed by the information and knowledge-driven society — something that can only be achieved by a sustained investment in information and communication technology training.

This decision is pursued on two complementary fronts:

the obligatory teaching of the Information and Communication Technologies subject, with a weekly class load of two 90-minute teaching units that form part of the general education/training component. This subject will provide a combined response to the objectives of raising computer awareness and providing a training that is centred on productivity tools such as file management, word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, Internet navigation, e-mail and image-processing skills;

the offer of the Computer Applications subject, as a follow-up to and further development of the initial subject, particularly in relation to databases, network management and maintenance, computer-aided design, web-design, project management and multimedia studies.

It is important to ensure that all pupils master an essential set of forms of knowledge and techniques, so that, using this threshold as a starting point, they can develop the associated competencies. However, the transversality of this training increases the potential for unequal access and educational development by benefiting those who enjoy a family environment with a greater cultural capital, but relegating the socially and culturally disadvantaged to digital illiteracy. This is why teaching people to use information and communication technologies is not only an educational imperative, but also a social and cultural one. The techniques and mastery of the processes involved in systematising and treating information, of the applications that are linked to computer-aided design, and of the capacity to produce contents for the Internet are strategic areas of knowledge from which we cannot remain aloof. Successfully facing the challenge of the school of the future implies possessing the capacity to produce, treat and disseminate information.

The new offers of education and training for adult groups with few qualifications, the Adult Education and Training Courses and the National System for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies are all constructed on the basis of the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training 55 — key competencies which are in turn founded on an organisation in four core areas, all of which are considered necessary for the education of people/citizens in today’s world: Language and Communication; Information and Communication Technologies; Mathematics for Life; and Citizenship and Employability.

The explicit creation of an Information and Communication Technologies Area, which is seen as a key competency in adult education, reflects the awareness of how important it is, above all

54 Executive Law nº 140/2001, dated 24th April 2001, and Ministerial Order nº 1013/2001, dated 21st August

2001. 55 For more information about the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and

Training, see Part I, 1.4.5.

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given the role that it can play in facilitating the development of other competencies which are essential if adults are to improve their social and professional insertion.

The approach to this Area is therefore not focused exclusively on performance at the computer and computer-peripherals level, but rather on the projects and contexts in which they are used, from the perspective of: i) obtaining, transmitting, interpreting and presenting information with resort to the Internet; and ii) using computer tools — such as word processors and spreadsheets — for both personal and professional purposes.

The Actions S@bER+ — short-duration training actions targeted at the adult population — cover domains that lead to the development and deepening of ICT competencies for use in the Technological Literacy and Internet for the Citizen areas.

2.3.3. FINANCIAL SUPPORT MEASURES

Although the pursuit of the priorities of the Major Policy Options for 2003-2006 in the first place and of the objectives of the National Employment Plan in the second place — particularly the implementation of the investments associated with the different Directives — can also count on financial resources provided by the State Budget, to a large extent it is dependent on the resources and forms of financing that are made available within the framework of the European Union’s Structural Funds, especially the European Social Fund.

The European Social Fund — a financial instrument that makes it possible to implement the strategic objectives of the employment policy — generally speaking provides the funding for the measures that form part of the Lifelong Learning Strategy, particularly via the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal Programme, the Employment, Training and Social Development Operational Programme, and, in the specific case of e-learning, the Information Society Operational Programme. It also makes an essential contribution to the support for the measures designed to fight unemployment, assist inclusion and pursue equal opportunities — again highly concentrated in the Employment, Training and Social Development Operational Programme and the devolved measures of the Regional Operational Programmes.

The Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III (2000-2006) is making an important contribution by providing a large part of the funding for those measures in Pillar I of the National Employment Plan that are related to education, especially the ones that concern the implementation of the Lifelong Learning Strategy in components such as the prevention of early school leaving and the articulation of education and training. Within this framework we should note the fundamental nature of both this Programme’s prior articulation with the policies and Operational Programmes in the training, employment and innovation fields, and the cooperation with the economic sector in the identification of the strategic areas in which to invest in short and medium-term development.

In accordance with a philosophy of ensuring the continuity of phases I and II of the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal, and inasmuch as there is still a need for a programme of this nature in the medium-term (2000-2006), phase III of the Programme is articulating the investment of very substantial national resources with a fundamental Community contribution around four great core objectives:

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1 - to improve the quality of basic education, by contributing to a culture of initiative, responsibility and active citizenship;

2 - to expand and diversify the initial training of young people, by investing in the qualification and high employability of the latest generations;

3 - to promote lifelong learning and improve the employability of the adult population;

4 - to promote the development of the Information and Knowledge-Driven Society in Portugal.

The Operational Education Intervention is the Community’s contribution to the pursuit of the global objectives that were laid down for the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III (alongside the Operational Interventions in relation to Employment, Training and Social Development, Science, Technology and Innovation, the Information Society, Health and Culture) in the first priority of the III Community Support Framework for Portugal: increase the level of qualification of the Portuguese population and promote employment and social cohesion. Among the priority axes of the Operational Education Intervention, the following are of particular importance:

Axis 1 — Initial Qualifying Training for Young People

Embodies the option of concentrating financial resources on the 15-20 year-old age group, thereby — in complement with the Employment, Training and Social Development Operational Programme — ensuring the pursuit of one of the general objectives of the Regional Development Plan: to promote preventive action in order to minimise the risk of unemployment, particularly by investing in the qualification and high employability of the latest generations.

Axis 2 — Support for the Transition to the Active Life and the Promotion of Employability

In the light of the specificities and possibilities of the education system, seeks to contribute to the general objective of the Regional Development Plan: to promote lifelong learning.

Axis 3 — The Learning Society

In a way that is complementary and possesses markedly sectoral characteristics, seeks to reinforce another central objective of the human-resource strategy set out in the Regional Development Plan, concerning the development of the information and knowledge-driven society.

Given the good employability results achieved by vocational education and training, the alteration of compulsory education to twelve years that is mandated by the Basic Law on Education and the extension of the offer of vocational education and training to the schools in the regular secondary education system, within the framework of the interim reprogramming of Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III (2004-2006). The programme’s national management is proposing a financial reinforcement for this offer of secondary-level qualifying education/training. It should be remembered that vocational education and training makes a fundamental contribution to the increase in the proportion of both the young people who leave the education system with level 3 qualification and those who take secondary vocational paths. What is more, the existing number of places on such paths is clearly not great enough to handle the effective demand.

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In the light of both the challenges that will arise, and the role that the Guidance and Information Programme will be able to play, following the probable reinforcement of the education system and vocational components and the creation of autonomous paths within each of the overall paths that underlies the Basic Law on Education, the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III is also proposing a financial reinforcement for the Guidance and Information Programme.

It also proposes the creation of financial support for initiatives within the ambit of the action Promote Partnerships Between Schools and the Business Fabric, which will permit articulation between schools, the working world and businesses by strengthening the connection between the education system and the job market in such a way as to promote employability.

And finally, it is proposing a financial reinforcement for the National System for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies, both immediately, in response the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies, and in the future, with a view to permitting people to extend their studies or certify competencies that they have acquired in non-formal and informal learning contexts, up to the 12th grade. In reality, it is among the adult population that the greatest shortcomings exist, and we cannot simply wait for these generations to be replaced for this problem to be solved.

Within the current context of the definition of a vocational education and training funding model for Lisboa and Tejo Valley Region, the funding allocation for this form of secondary education has already been reinforced with financial resources from the State Budget. Inasmuch as this region is in the process of being phased out, this funding has been applied to the pupils who have already begun their training cycle in 2003/2004. This model creates an Attendance Grant for pupils, as well as other forms of socio-educational support and complements, thereby providing their beneficiaries with the freedom to choose their school and path under conditions that are similar to those they would experience, were they to attend regular secondary education.

While safeguarding the things that set the vocational education and training subsystem apart, this new funding model permits alternative forms of self-financing, particularly via the provision of services to the community and the partnerships with the businesses that clearly and directly benefit from the vocational paths in question. The professional schools are thus given an incentive to look to the regions in which they are inserted for complementary types of grant from both public and private local bodies and institutions.

The central and regional services of the Ministry of Education are responsible for setting the number and value of the grants to be awarded to each training area in each year, as well as for monitoring pupils’ academic progress.

2.3.4. INNOVATIVE PROJECTS

The education and training proposals for adults that have been made since 1999 with a view to constituting a process that will make learners more autonomous, take adult autonomy as both their starting and finishing points and the basis for their methodology, inasmuch as they consolidate the capacity to project the adult’s culture and praxis in learning and to make society come to terms with the training curricula and the programmes.

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We are in the presence of a training dynamic that highlights the strategies designed to enable adults to learn by themselves in all their various life situations and to take stock of the decisive moments therein in order to reconstruct their personal, social and political futures.

This process firstly entails leading adults to get to know what it is that they know, to recognise that ‘known’ and to become conscious of their individual and social practises. The fundamental goal is to place adults’ lives at the centre of their learning, and from there to work out training itineraries in which education takes place within the overall context of each person’s own educational history.

The pedagogical method which has been established for the new adult education and training opportunities in our country and which takes the form of guidance and counselling rather than direction, is rooted in the autobiographical and self-training currents of thought and is based on a set of postulated and widely studied beliefs, according to which adults:

are capable of identifying what it is that they need to learn in order to become autonomous and emancipated,

use their experience as the basis for their willingness to take part in educational proposals or their resistance to them, consider that learning should be useful and possess a practical end, and are not very receptive to the mere retention of knowledge,

are ready and willing to learn that which they have decided to learn and which they recognise as being valuable for their life and existence and

display motivation, on condition that the learning is based on their need and desire to develop (internal motivation), and not on external impositions or stimuli.

Adult education and training became more visible in 1996, when the European Union instituted the “European Year of Lifelong Education and Training”. Within this framework, priority was attached to a number of objectives, including:

to make citizens aware of the importance of lifelong education and training;

to promote improved cooperation between the education and training structures and businesses;

to contribute to the creation of a European education and training area via the academic and vocational recognition of qualifications;

to emphasise the contribution that education and training make to equal opportunities.

A year later, the Hamburg Conference (UNESCO) declared that adult education is more than just a right — it is at one and the same time a consequence of an active citizenship and a condition for a full participation in society.

In parallel with this, it was the assumptions underlying an education for life — inclusive of all citizens and tending towards the development of an emancipatory model embedded in the ‘learn to learn’ principle’ — which presided over the design of the new offers of adult education and training that emerged in the post-Hamburg Conference period, and which are embodied in the «Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training». Portugal worked the Key Competencies out within the overall adult education and training context that we have been describing, and we can point to two main areas within them that are marked by their transversality and are impossible to ignore in today’s society. These two areas of competence have arisen in tune with the contemporary movements in education and with UNESCO guidelines for education policies in the new millennium, which seek to reconcile

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humanism and technology, knowledge and the exercise of citizenship, and ethical education and autonomy:

o

the Information and Communication Technologies, with their multiplicity of applications and uses in every aspect of human activity, are in the process of changing the nature of people’s daily personal, family and professional lives. It is the active members of the population who best understand and manipulate computer equipment and tools who will enjoy the greatest opportunity to completely fulfil their productive potential. In order to be requalified, the majority of Portuguese workers, who are socialised within the context of the industrialised world and find themselves very poorly qualified in the face of the new demands that are blocking their adaptability skills, need to access and remain within education/training ambits that must grow to encompass the whole of their lives.

Given that the information and communication technology field is now proving to be an ingredient that is critical to the improvement of the conditions which ensure employability, there is a fundamental need to construct and disseminate education/training responses which open up new perspectives for entry into the emerging form of social organisation based on information and knowledge. It is thus necessary to democratise computer-related resources and create social equality mechanisms by building an information society for all.

It is important to bear in mind the role that the new technologies play in bringing geographic areas and citizens closer together. By minimising spatial distancing and maximising every aspect of communication networks, they fulfil an especially valuable and powerful mission by breaking down the physical and social isolation in which innumerable small settlements scattered across the inland and rural areas of the country find themselves.

What is more, the Internet is generating new patterns for accessing, exploring and making use of information and, by expanding learning contexts and making it possible to bring the real, current world into training, is opening up ways that help adults to achieve self-discovery and self-learning;

Citizenship and Employability, which is an innovative area in the Portuguese education context, seeks to work together with the four pillars of education — learning to be, to know, to do and to live along with others — and with the ethical, aesthetic and political principles that guide social and professional life today, with the aim of empowering adults to secure a fairer, more democratic and more equitable insertion in society. This is a path which is designed to develop personal and social competencies and which includes the acquisition of different forms of know-how and the awareness of values, such as the recognition of human rights, the exercise of the rights and duties of citizenship, the understanding and acceptance of diversity, the fight against every form of prejudice and discrimination, the valuing of quality, equity in access to jobs, good health and a sound environment, and respect for the Law, among others.

The policy of making adults autonomous is embodied in the offer of adult education and training opportunities and essentially employs three instruments:

the process of recognising, validating and certifying the competencies that have been acquired in the different contexts of an adult’s personal, professional and social life;

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o

o

the Learning with Autonomy module that begins the training process in the Adult Education and Training Courses;

a didactic/pedagogical provision that places the various basic and vocational training components in dialogue and articulation with one another (including within the framework of the Adult Education and Training Courses and seeks to ensure their conjugation, complementarity and reciprocity: that which can be learnt in one place does not need to be repeated in another; the approach to one area can be enriched or taken to a greater depth in another; a thematic project can call on collective and interdisciplinary work; a given vocational/professional domain can inspire the thematic elements for the architecture of the pedagogical structure; and so on.

2.3.5. CONTROLLING THE QUALITY OF THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING ON OFFER

Assessing the efficiency, efficacy and quality of the education system must be a continuous, permanent and public task and must cover pupil learning, the performance of both teaching and non-teaching staff, the schools, the whole of the system itself and education policy.

Under the terms of legislation that was passed in 2002 56, assessment must be based on a diagnostic analysis and must seek to create terms of reference for more demanding levels of requirement by identifying best practises.

The assessment structure is based on both a properly certified self-evaluation and an external assessment. As such, assessment is an essential instrument when it comes to: i) defining education policy, ii) promoting the quality of teaching and the success of learning, iii) guaranteeing the credibility of the performance of schools, iv) upgrading and attaching added value to the role of the different members of the education community and v) taking part in the international education-system assessment processes.

In Portugal, the assessment system’s organic structure, which is responsible for the planning, coordination, process definition and result interpretation and dissemination functions includes the National Education Council, which issues opinions and recommendations, and those of the Ministry of Education’s services that possess competencies in the education-system assessment field.

Among the most important objectives of the Portuguese government’s structural reform of education, the policies for qualifying the country’s human resources and promoting the quality of its education and training possess the status of a strategic national goal.

In the Major Policy Options for 2003-2006, the following are also leading priorities in the education and labour and training areas:

the assessment of schools performance, including the publication of the results and the creation of a system for distinguishing merit and providing support to the establishments that display the greatest shortcomings;

56 Law nº 31/2002, dated 20th December 2002.

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the promotion of the quality of professional training, by means of the continuous improvement of the Training Body Accreditation System.

The Ministry of Education is betting on the Non-Higher Education and Teaching Assessment System as a means of stimulating improved quality in the education system. Its aim is

[...] the creation of terms of reference for more demanding levels of requirement, as well as the identification of best organisational and pedagogical practises in the fields of school and education, teaching and learning tasks which form models for recognising, upgrading and attaching added value to and stimulating education and making it more dynamic.

The proposed assessment system:

is systematic and permanent in nature,

is based on the articulation of self-assessment — by the schools themselves — and external assessment and

presupposes that the system’s development and implementation will combine a variety of interventions by teachers, parents and other adults with responsibility for children’s education, non-teaching staff, pupils and other persons and bodies who/which directly or indirectly take part in and benefit from the daily life of the education system.

In organic terms the existing law provides for an articulated intervention by the National Education Council, via a specialised permanent commission for the assessment of the education system, and by the Ministry of Education services with competence in this matter.

As a central instrument in the definition of education policies, the Assessment System’s objectives are:

to promote improvement in the quality, organisation and levels of efficiency and efficacy of the education system, support the formulation, development and implementation of education and training policies, and ensure the availability of management information about the system;

equip local, regional and national administration and government and society in general with a framework of information about the functioning of the education system;

ensure educational success, by promoting a culture of quality, demanding requirements and responsibility in schools;

ensure the credibility of the performance of education and schools;

upgrade and attach added value to the role of the various members of the education community;

promote a culture of continuous improvement in the organisation, functioning and results of the education system and educational projects;

participate in the international institutions and processes linked to the assessment of education systems.

In parallel, the Inspectorate-General of Education, which enjoys administrative and technical autonomy, audits and controls the technical, pedagogical, administrative, financial and asset-related aspects of the functioning of the education system and gauges their legality, efficiency, efficacy and quality.

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Inasmuch as they are instruments that are fundamental to the formulation of education policy, education statistics must judge the degree to which the education system is performing and are thus essential tools in the system’s assessment.

The career promotion of the human resources in education is necessarily linked to the assessment of both their performance in all the work they do and their professional, pedagogical and academic qualifications.

For the purpose of assessing the pre-school education subsystem during a phase in which this form of teaching is expanding and developing in Portugal, the Ministry of Education bought the copyright to the Effective Early Learning Project from Worcester University. The project was then adapted to the Portuguese context and is now called Developing Quality in Partnerships.

This is a dynamic, participative project that proposes to assess quality in pre-school educational establishments by means of a reference framework created by its authors. There are ten aspects to this framework:

Purposes and objectives The educational space

The curriculum/learning experiences Relationships and interactions

Teaching and learning strategies Equal opportunities

Planning, assessment and recording Parent and community participation

Staff Monitoring and assessment

This theoretical framework for quality can be used in different educational contexts and assumes its own application in a number of successive years. The methodology it employs is to a large extent qualitative, but also uses some quantitative methods for gathering and analysing data. The assessment process is conducted with the participants and not for them.

This project is proving to be of the greatest importance to pre-school education and is targeted at an improvement in the learning conditions enjoyed by the children. Its objectives are thus to:

develop and pursue an effective strategy for assessing and improving the quality and efficacy of the learning of pre-school-age children, who attend a very varied range of pre-school educational establishments;

rigorously and systematically assess and compare the quality of the learning that is provided by this very varied range of pre-school educational establishments.

As a mechanism for assessing the basic education subsystem, the standard national tests are intended to help improve quality by making it possible to take decisions designed to perfect the education system and promote greater social trust in the way it functions. They are one of the instruments that are used to assess the development and implementation of the national curriculum and are designed to supply important information to teachers, schools and the educational administration. They do not have any effect on pupils’ academic progress.

These standard tests are taken in the 4th, 6th and 9th grades and cover Portuguese Language and Mathematics. They test different types of competency that are considered essential to the various subjects and themes, and seek to highlight aspects of learning that the pupils have acquired with greater or lesser degrees of success. The results of the standard tests are treated and analysed by the Ministry of Education, after which they are sent in the shape of annual reports to all the schools, which can then interpret them and think about what they mean from a pedagogical standpoint.

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Their application began on an experimental basis in 1993, but, as can be seen from the table below, has been regular since 2000:

Table XXXII

Basic Education — assessment

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003

4th grade universe universe sample sample

6th grade ----- universe universe sample

9th grade ----- ----- universe sample

In the new vocational training framework, the following are examples of monitoring systems that have been implemented in relation to the education and training of young people and adults that falls under the responsibility of the Directorate-General of Vocational Training:

o

o

o

o

o

Supervising, monitoring and assessing professional schools: include activities which are designed to supervise and observe young diploma-holders’ employment situations and are undertaken by the schools themselves; their purpose is to promote the ex-pupils’ integration and simultaneously permit a constant adjustment of the training networks.

In this respect the Study on the Post-Training Path Taken by Vocational Education Pupils (conducted annually under the aegis of the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal III) focuses on identifying (at regional level) the professional insertion rate achieved by diploma-holders, the extent to which they are satisfied with their insertion, and the level of transition to higher education. Having said this, the additional analysis of other aspects of the situation also helps to estimate the main types of effect and to better understand the impacts of this form of secondary education.

Supervising, monitoring and assessing the Centres for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies, in order to guarantee transparency and rigour in the operation of both the National System for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies and the Centres themselves, in such a way as to legitimate the official and social value of the competencies validated and certified thereby. This process is intended to achieve the following objectives, on different levels:

to play a part in the regulation of the operation of the Network of Centres for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies;

to supervise the Centres performance, while collaborating in the identification of the strong and weak points in their operation and contributing to the maintenance or improvement of the levels of quality they have already attained;

to induce the Centres to engage in self assessment processes, as the best strategy for sustaining the quality of their competency recognition, validation and certification practises;

to characterise the performance of the Network of Centres for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies, via a National Report, in a process that identifies and attaches value to significant practises and flags dysfunctions, constraints and bottlenecks with a view to finding new responses;

to assess the performance and the qualitative and quantitative results of the work of each Centre for Recognition, Validation and Certification of

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Competencies during the accreditation period in question, for the purpose of the renewal or suspension of that accreditation.

Supervising, monitoring and assessing the Adult Education and Training Courses, on the basis of a Supervisory and Training Provision that is structured in an articulated manner on three levels of intervention: the local level, which is closest to the pedagogical staff, bodies and teams involved; the regional level; and the central level, which is responsible for monitoring the courses and assessing the system.

This provision makes it possible to address three dimensions in an integrated, systematic way: i) the course assessment dimension, ii) the trainer training dimension and iii) the dimension involving the production of knowledge in order to capitalise on the potential for innovation that underlies the Adult Education and Training Course model.

Every entity that promotes an Adult Education and Training Course must provide for course assessment moments which enable it to offer an appropriate response to requirements imposed by Community funding and which, in parallel, allow it to determine the impact that the training process has had in terms of an improvement in the knowledge and an increase in the competencies of the adults who took the course.

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2.4. CURRICULAR DEVELOPMENT

The curricular guidelines for pre-school education, which are based on the theoretical principles of constructivism, provide the grounds for and make it possible to pursue a variety of educational options embodied in various different curricula. They thus constitute a set of principles intended to support kindergarten teachers in the educational process in which they engage with children, and a common reference for all the teachers in the national pre-school education network, all with a view to the organisation of the educational component of this type of provision. The curricular guidelines are a framework of principles that must be articulated with one another with a view to:

developing both the child and his/her learning, as indissociable aspects of a single process;

recognising the child as the subject of the educational process and the possessor of forms of knowledge and know-how, the upgrading of and attachment of value to which are the basis for new learning;

an articulated construction of know-how, in which the approaches to the different areas are presented in a globalising and integrated way;

ensuring that a response is provided to every child, by means of a differentiated, cooperation-centred pedagogical practise in which each child benefits from the educational process conducted with the group as a whole.

The curricular guidelines for basic education target the acquisition of competencies, the notion of which includes: knowledge — conceptual know-how; capacities — knowing how to do; and attitudes — relational know-how.

The School Educational Project 57 is one of the instruments for exercising pedagogical autonomy — in other words, for taking decisions — in this area and embodies the school’s educational orientation and the principles, values, targets and strategies that it proposes to employ in order to fulfil its educational function. It addresses every aspect of the curricula, as well as the optional and eminently recreational and cultural activities designed to enrich them — particularly in the fields of sport, the arts, science and technology, the link between the school and its milieu, charitable and voluntary activities and the European dimension in education. The Project is drawn up and approved by the school administration and management bodies and possesses a three-year horizon.

The design, development and implementation of a School Educational Project must take account of the different perspectives of the teachers, parents, pupils and community agents by ensuring dialogue both within the school and between the latter and the community, and by enriching the school’s culture and know-how with the social aspect of life. It is thus an instrument for achieving organisational development by deepening the process of reflection within the school.

The Educational Project equips each school with a pedagogical operational philosophy of its own, which, within the overall framework of the national principles, rules and standards, will improve the contribution of school to the learning and individual and social development of its pupils by giving it its own identity and creating a feeling of belonging among everyone who belongs to the educational community in question.

57 Executive Law nº 115-A/98, dated 4th May 1998.

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Within the overall framework of the development and implementation of school autonomy, the strategies for developing the national curriculum in such a way as to adapt it to the context of each individual school, are the object of a School Curricular Project. This Project is approved and assessed by the school own administration and management bodies and must be developed and implemented in accordance with the context of each class, in the form of a class curricular project, in a way that complies with the terms of Executive Law nº 6/2001, dated 18th January 2001.

In the basic education the Teachers’ Council (1st cycle) and the Class Council (in the 2nd and 3rd cycles) are the bodies responsible, within the framework of the Class Curricular Project, for planning and orienting the class work in every domain, to which end they must use the essential learning and competencies laid down at national level as their point of reference.

The curricular project is based on the principle that by taking account of the specific characteristics of, and situations in, the various contexts, the reconstruction of the national curriculum is leading to an educational process that is better suited to the diversity of the pupils in the system. The school and class curricular projects are thus intended to be means of facilitating the organisation of dynamics which will favour learning that will lead to a successful school for all.

The Class Curricular Project must be designed in accordance with the specificities of the class pupils and must take the School Curricular Project as its point of reference. It should provide for a concrete and often individualised pedagogical action and requires the class teachers to constantly articulate their interventions.

The new Programmes drawn up within the scope of the curricular reform of secondary education include precise methodological and management guidelines which give precise indications about the recommended framework of methodological points of reference, as well as proposals for types of activities and tasks to be undertaken. In general terms they emphasise the use of active methodologies that are centred on the pupil’s process and are designed to develop his/her autonomy. Learning based on a project methodology and the completion of tasks, with a particular emphasis on experimentation, is the hub of the methodological options that the new curricula adopt with a view to the development of research, organisation and method-related competencies which provide the conditions needed to learn by doing and to learn to learn, all from a lifelong learning perspective.

In order to support the development of the curricula, there are school books for all the subjects. They are not produced by the Ministry of Education; instead, the initiative for writing, producing and distributing them belongs to civil society, while the Ministry plays a supplementary role in cases in which no publisher steps forward. The Ministry is also responsible for assessing the pedagogical and academic quality of the school books produced by private publishing houses.

The Ministry of Education pedagogical services have, however, been producing a range of materials with which to support the development and implementation of the programmes of various subjects, such as Portuguese, Foreign Languages, Mathematics and Experimental Sciences. These take on both traditional formats in the shape of support guides and brochures, and multimedia ones — namely videos and CD-ROM. A number of these materials have been produced within the scope of continuous teacher training activities, or by groups of specialists.

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In order to put the overall lines of the reform of secondary education and of the vocationally qualifying opportunities into practise, the Ministry of Education proposed legislation 58 on youth training and qualification that is designed to match young people’s personal and social development to the challenges of today’s world, in a way that clearly promotes the school success of the target groups in this level of education. A number of mechanisms have thus been created to this end, including:

horizontal mobility between courses;

information and communication technology training;

the articulation of the education and training policies;

increasing the diversity and quality of the education and training on offer.

The flexibilisation of the curricular models thanks to their modular construction and their organisation by competencies is making it possible to focus the learning process on the interests, needs and expectations of the learners — be they young people or adults — and to adapt the education/training to the demands of the country’s development, as determined by a job market that is experiencing constant evolution and innovation.

Faced with the new strategic framework that is being outlined for the education and training policy, the Ministry of Education is betting on the reinforcement and reorganisation of vocational education and training, in ways that recognise the positive aspects that have already contributed to the construction of a format that offers an alternative to secondary education over the last fourteen years. This investment involves:

affirming the identity of vocational education and training, without prejudice to a harmonisation of the different vocationally qualifying paths, in such a way as to equip young people with a range of humanistic, scientific and technical forms of know-how that enable them to actively play their role as citizens and to achieve a successful insertion into the working world;

reformulating the vocational education and training that is available, by adapting it to the current and emerging professional profiles, within the framework of an identification of areas that are a priority for and strategic to the country’s economic and social development;

defining a curricular matrix that comes close to those of other secondary education formats, particularly in terms of the training in the socio-cultural component, thereby facilitating permeability between the different training paths and safeguarding the specificity of vocational education in all the education/training components 59.

In Portugal, the education and training of the adult population are playing a very significant role, which is different to that in other European countries. It entails both the acquisition of know-how and the creation of the conditions needed for the social recognition, validation, certification, acquisition and/or development of basic competencies by a significant part of the population, who did not have the opportunity to gain access to school or who left it prematurely.

The fact is that the non-recognition and non-certification of many competencies that a large proportion of the Portuguese population has acquired in non-formal and informal contexts — particularly the working context — increases the need for a national effort to recognise, validate

58 Executive Law nº 74/2004, dated 26th March 2004. 59 For more information about curricular orientations at the vocational education level, see Part I, 1.4.4.

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and certify them within the lifelong learning framework, including by defining individualised education and training paths that match each particular situation.

In this context the National System for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies is structured on the basis of the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training, which is organised in accordance with four areas of competence — Citizenship and Employability; Language and Communication; Mathematics for Life; and Information and Communication Technologies — and is founded on an increasingly complex matrix that corresponds to the three existing basic education cycles. The process entails three fundamental moments in time:

1. Competency recognition: a personal process for identifying previously acquired competencies, in which the adult is given opportunities to think about and assess his/her life experiences, thereby leading him/her to recognise his/her competencies and promoting the construction of significant personal and professional projects.

At the Centres for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies, the process of recognising competencies mobilises a whole range of activities based on a philosophy of a balance sheet of competencies and life stories, in which moments at which to identify and assess competencies are promoted via a variety of strategies (individual and collective interviews, practical activities, demonstrations, games, etc.). The documental evidence that results from this process is recorded in the Adult’s Personal Dossier.

2. Competency validation: a formal act that takes the shape of a range of activities intended to support the adult in the process of assessing his/her assets in the key-competency and levels of academic certification areas, as per the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training.

This moment culminates with the intervention of the Validation Jury, which analyses and assesses the Adult’s Dossier, in a process in which it interprets all the documented evidence and correlates it with the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training; whenever necessary, it also promotes activities designed to demonstrate the competencies that are not very clearly described/documented in the Dossier.

In the light of the Competency Validation Request that the adult has submitted, the Jury then situates him/her in relation to the various units of competency in the different Key Competency areas, and finally records those units that have effectively been validated in his/her Personal Portfolio of Key Competencies;

3. Competency certification: the final moment in the overall process and the one that confirms the validated competencies by issuing a Certificate, which, for all the applicable legal purposes, is equivalent to one of the three existing basic education cycles:

Basic 1 (B1), which is equivalent to the 1st basic education cycle; o

o

o

Basic 2 (B2), which is equivalent to the 2nd basic education cycle;

Basic 3 (B3), which is equivalent to the 3rd basic education cycle.

The Adult Education and Training Courses fit within the framework of a methodological option for action that is centred on the integrated offer of education and training with dual — academic and professional — certification, which is targeted at underqualified adult groups. This new model, which is organised by competency, emphasises flexible solutions that articulate

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education and training via paths which are organised on the basis of competency recognition, validation and certification processes that are founded on the «Framework of Reference for Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training».

The design of a model which is organised by competency appears to be the format that is best suited to the education/training of adults who, although they possess little formal schooling, do have a life experience which to some extent enables them to be competent from a practical, technical or expressive point of view.

The action and organisation of the Adult Education and Training Courses are thus subject to the following principles:

the adoption of a constructivist view of the curriculum, innovation and the learning of both the trainees and the trainers, via the design of a national matrix, the execution of which will hopefully occur by means of strategies that are locally conceived within an overall framework that permits a diversity of proposals that are suited to the learning groups;

the adoption of an open, flexible framework; inasmuch as this is an innovative education and training model, its development and implementation is the basis for the conceptualisation of the organisational, procedural, pedagogical and social aspects of the education/training;

the application of the Framework of Reference for Key Competencies; the idea is that the Framework will come up with monitoring instruments that are both useful and appropriate to the diversity of socio-economic realities involved;

the modular organisation of the adult education and training curricula; it is proposed that the curriculum be organised in modules which are independent from, but coherent with, one another and which are in turn broken down into units that can be assessed and accredited, thereby making it possible to design individual training paths; it is hoped that in this way, adults’ training paths will be facilitated and their acquisitions and learning in informal and/or non-formal contexts will be valued and recognised;

the local construction of the curriculum; once the key competencies — that is, those that need to be acquired by all the trainees on all the courses, subject to the specificity of each professional outlet 60 — have been identified, the training bodies are given the local autonomy to define other competencies that are coherent with the different contexts in which each Adult Education and Training Course is held and with the needs of the adults who take them;

assessment should possess an eminently formative nature: assessment to be procedural, qualitative and guidance-oriented; within the overall framework of a success-oriented pedagogy, using strategies and instruments that are coherent with the principles that underpin all the other dimensions of the curricular development process, the assessment methodology must attach value to, record and validate the competencies that the trainees/adults gradually acquire, thereby making these acquisitions the basis for the restructuring of their personal and professional projects;

personal and social mediation; inasmuch as the adults who receive the education/training may be poorly qualified, the people who take Adult Education and Training Courses possess particular characteristics and generally belong to groups that are in danger of a double — social and professional — exclusion; against this background,

60 In accordance with the Professional Qualification Profiles.

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there is a fundamental role to be played by a mediator who supervises the whole process from the phase during which the trainees are selected until the end of their education/training path, re-establishing their networks of interpersonal, social and professional relationships, promoting trust and self-esteem, accompanying and supporting each trainee and counselling and guiding him/her in the (re)definition of his personal, social and professional project;

the stimulation of local partnerships, via cooperation with the entities within civil society which, thanks to the fact that their proximity to the population enables them to possess a broader and better knowledge of the conditions, resources, needs and interests of both individual people and whole communities, are generally in a better organisational position to undertake flexible and pertinent education/training initiatives.

On the basis of diverse measures of a curricular nature, the special educational regime 61 sets out the Individual Education Plan for special education pupils. This Plan must contain the general guidelines for the special curricular areas and contents that are appropriate to each pupil and the conditions needed for his/her development, all with a view to his/her personal and social fulfilment. The Regime applies to both basic and secondary education, although in the case of the latter, it does not provide for any alternative curricula.

Within the context of an integrated education, the work of the Special Education Teams is particularly important. They are made up of kindergarten and regular teachers with training in the special education field, and by other specialists who have contributed to the diagnosis, observation, forwarding and direct handling of the cases of the children and young people receiving integrated education.

As of 1997 these multidisciplinary teams were given other competencies, so that they can provide educational support that takes the shape of a response which is consistent with the decentralisation and geographic specialisation of the country’s education policies. This led to the formation of Educational Support Coordination Teams, which articulate diversified types of education support that are needed not only for the integration of pupils with special educational needs, but also to be able to broaden their learning.

Specific legislation has thus been used to define the organisational, methodological and management conditions applicable to the provision of support to pupils with special educational needs, via the creation of the Educational Supports. This legislative initiative’s central concern is the management and integrated planning of human and technical resources, curricular flexibilisation, accessibility to the curriculum by both pupils with special educational needs and their peers, and strategic and methodological innovation in the teaching/learning process, thereby regulating each pupil’s life projects and seeking to maximise everyone’s development.

61 For more information on the special education regime, see Part I, 1.4.7.a).

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2.5. POLITICAL DIALOGUE, PARTNERSHIPS AND PARTICIPATION OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE

EDUCATION PROCESS

To the extent that it constitutes a prospective and strategic overall framework of reference, the Lifelong Learning Strategy represents the stabilisation of a philosophy of a systematic approach that coordinates and integrates the various aspects of lifelong learning on the basis of the adoption of a wide-reaching concept. It offers the advantage of being one more point at which to systematise the intervention of the national policies on this subject and to formalise the objectives that help move the Portuguese population’s qualifications closer to European levels.

Given that it is by nature transversal, the Lifelong Learning Strategy involves a variety of areas of intervention that range from education to training, via jobs, youth, science and technology, not to mention fiscal policy, social security and local government. Its promotion, development and implementation require the state and the social partners to make a major effort to concentrate and articulate their efforts.

Where the public authorities are concerned, in addition to the main texts that guide and systematise the policies on this matter — especially the Lifelong Learning Strategy set out in the National Employment Plan, and the Major Policy Options for 2003-2006 — the government is making sure that the interventions of the various departments involved is closely articulated, by:

strengthening the coordination between the different Ministries, above all the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of Social Security and Labour.

In this respect we should particularly note: i) the creation of a Working Group entrusted with defining the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Social Security and Labour’s areas of action in relation to initial education/training 62; and ii) the Plan to Eliminate the Exploitation of Child Labour, which provides for training to be held as part of the Integrated Education and Training Programme, with a view to favouring participation in compulsory education by minors who are found to be in a child labour situation, and vocational certification for minors aged 15 and over;

implementing of inter-ministerial organisational structures that are specifically charged with stimulating and monitoring the process in the different areas of intervention, in close contact with the ministerial offices and bureaus involved. Examples include the Supervisory Commissions for the National Employment Plan, the National Action Plan for Inclusion and the Integrated Innovation Support Programme.

We should also mention the National Plan for Preventing Early School Leaving, which is currently in the process of getting up and running, and the Plan for the Implementation of the National Sustainable Development Strategy and the National Action Plan for the implementation of «Education and Training 2010» Work Programme, both of which are being drawn up at the moment;

the integration of the vocational education and training policies and systems within the overall framework of the ongoing structural education reform, which is leading to the creation of a new body within the Ministry of Education — the Directorate-General of Vocational Training, which we have already talked about. The Directorate-General of Vocational Training is expected to act transversally in pursuit of the objectives in the youth and adult lifelong qualification field.

62 Joint Regulatory Order nº 29/2003, dated 15th January 2003.

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We must also emphasise the authorities’ recognition of the need for the social partners to participate in the implementation of the concerted education/training strategies. In this respect the Joint Declarations by the Social Partners and the Agreement on Employment Policy, the Job Market and Education and Training (2001) are both playing a particularly important role.

Besides internal political dialogue — a process that is inherent to the work of the government, whose policies must necessarily be articulated in such a way as to ensure the efficacy of the sectoral objectives — as a European Union Member State, Portugal integrates the European Council, which is the Community’s main decision-making institution with legislative power. However, the legislative process is subject to the notion of subsidiarity — a principle that regulates the exercise of competencies and is intended to ensure that decisions are taken as close to the citizen as possible, depending on whether that proximity is best guaranteed at the Community or the national scale.

Cooperation also exists within the framework of the Community programmes which the National Agency for the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci Programmes manages under the oversight of the Ministry of Education, in articulation with the Ministries of Science and Higher Education and Social Security and Labour. This cooperation has emphasised an effective articulation of the education and training systems in which the fundamental requirements are quality, innovation and the European dimension. Providing incentives to learn languages has also been an action priority and the contents of the projects in this area have indeed been gradually improved.

In addition to the actions that Portugal is taking within the framework of the European Union, the cooperation in the education and training sector also involves the various multilateral organisations, such as the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Organisation of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries.

When it comes to bilateral relations, which Portugal pursues on the basis of Cultural Agreements with a variety of countries, a whole range of projects have been undertaken and include cooperation between education experts, scientists and education and research institutions. Their dual objective is to improve the insertion of children who have emigrated or are the descendants of Portuguese families into the education systems of the countries in which they live, and to disseminate the Portuguese language and culture. Specific cooperative projects targeted at integration have been undertaken in various countries in which Portuguese is taught as a foreign language.

Where Portuguese teaching abroad is concerned, the political dialogue between the various elements of Portuguese public administration with responsibilities in relation to this matter has given rise to an inter-ministerial effort to draw up a pre-draft for an action programme for Portuguese teaching in other countries. This pre-draft will be the object of a public consultation process designed to gather contributions from all the parties who intervene in the education process and from society in general, and thus contribute to an improvement in the quality of Portuguese teaching abroad.

The integration of the Portuguese language into the curricula of education systems of the various countries has been the fundamental topic of bilateral talks held under the auspices of the various Mixed Commission and Sub-Commissions for Education.

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Again on the international level, partnerships have been established with schools in a number of countries in order to deepen and exchange experiences in current and emerging fields, such as Pro-Citizenship Education.

The creation of the National Pre-School Education Network and the consequent consolidation of a range of partnerships was made possible by the signature of Cooperation Protocols between the various social partners, which guarantee the free provision of the educational component in pre-schools and the state’s participation in the cost of the family support component. The parties to the Cooperation Protocols are the State 63 and other social partners: The Union of Private and Charitable Institutions, the Union of Mutual Associations, the Union of Misericórdia Charities, the Lisbon Misericórdia Charity and the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities.

Another part of the programme to expand and develop pre-school education that deserves to be mentioned is the plan to enter into contracts with private and cooperative teaching establishments for the development of a private for-profit pre-school network designed to support the families who have found solutions for their children’s education in establishments of this kind by positively discriminating in favour of those with the least economic resources. The amount of this support is set and annually updated by ministerial order.

These measures are intended to stimulate the expansion of the national pre-school network by implementing a policy of equal opportunities for access and attendance by all children.

At the basic education level, the Ministry of Education shares responsibilities with other bodies — principally democratically elected local entities. Law nº 169/99, dated 18th September 1999, as revised by Law nº 5-A/2002, dated 11th January 2002, allocates some important competencies to the municipalities, which must:

support, or participate in the support for, school social action and the complementary activities undertaken within the scope of educational projects;

organise and manage school transport;

take decisions in relation to school social action, particularly as regards the provision of meals and accommodation and the grant of economic assistance to pupils;

undertake the conservation and repair of pre-school and basic education schools;

participate by the appropriate means in the provision of support for social, cultural, sporting, recreational or other activities that are in the municipal interest;

manage schools human resources in the cases and under the terms required by the Law.

The Ministry of Education is forming partnerships with higher education institutions in order to mobilise all the educational agents at the different levels of teaching in the definition of a common strategy designed to resolve the problems that are currently facing education in Portugal, especially in the area of the construction of a curriculum that possesses both quality and educational pertinence.

It is also establishing partnerships with non-governmental organisations and entering into one-off contracts with different state services and institutions in areas like the environment, sustainable development, consumer education and road safety education, all with a view to developing and undertaking joint projects and creating useful materials.

63 The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Security and Labour.

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The progressive coordination and integration of the oversight of education and professional training that is taking place within the context of the lifelong learning strategy is pointing the way to the indispensable mobilisation and involvement of the whole of society. In this respect, particular importance is attached to the social partners’ participation on various different levels — local and regional — in sharing responsibilities, detecting problems and proposing increasingly concerted solutions for more effective interventions. Especially significant contributions in this respect are being made at the level of:

the reinforcement of initial youth qualification: the offer of professional/vocational traineeships to secondary and higher education pupils/students by businesses/business organisations in the various different sectors of economic activity;

adult education and training and the certification of competencies acquired by informal and non-formal means over the course of a person’s life and in different life contexts: the key role that properly accredited public and private bodies are playing in the promotion of diversified education/training opportunities centred on the reinforcement and acquisition of adults’ competencies.

Founded on the need to implement an initial education and training network that is diversified and particularly targeted at the qualification requirements of the productive social fabric, the professional schools — which have thus far been almost exclusively private 64, mostly small in size and with their own specific projects and organisation — are the result of the conjugation of local and regional efforts involving partnerships between different social and economic institutions: local authorities, businesses, commercial and industrial associations and so on.

This basis for creation is seeking to enhance the work of the organisational structures involved in local development and to provide answers for the emerging needs of the context in which they are inserted by investing in making the education/training they offer faster on its feet and more flexible, so as to respond to the demands and the mutations of the job market, without neglecting young people’s successful transition to and incorporation in the active life. These attributes have at one and the same time been one of the network of vocational schools greatest limitations:

More than 50% of the demand for the courses offered by the Professional Schools cannot be satisfied and many young people are thus prevented from successfully accessing a post-basic training 65.

Within this framework, one strategic objective is to discover solutions that are appropriate to a real promotion of vocational education and training, in close articulation with the training centres and a more active involvement of the bodies that represent the business fabric, in such a way as to impose a balance between public and private organisations. In this process an equally central role is played by school, as an entity which autonomously constructs its educational project in a manner that is coherent with the Ministry of Education guidelines on the quality and quantity of the education/training offered, and involves partners from the social and economic fabric of the geographic area in which it is inserted.

Thus, and in order to overcome the limitations of what is an almost exclusively private network, regulations have just been issued to govern the functioning of the secondary level professional

64 In 2004, of a total of 228 vocational schools, only 18 were state-owned. 65 Azevedo, J. (2003). O ensino profissional em Portugal [Vocational education and training in Portugal].

Porto. Associação Nacional do Ensino Profissional (National Vocational Education Association).

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courses in the schools and groups of schools that belong to the public network of teaching establishments.

The most important types of provider of adult education in Portugal include public schools and vocational training agencies which are supported at a central/regional level by either the Departments of Education or the Departments of Employment and Professional Training.

Since the late 1990’s the number of both the private education and training institutions and the accredited training organisations has been increasing 66. These organizations are all supported and supervised by either the Departments of Education or the Departments of Employment and Professional Training, or by both working in cooperation with one another. Private education and training organisations can access public or Community funds or seek self-financing.

Recently, because they are able to provide an adequate response to some sectors of the adult population who are afraid to “return to school”, industrial associations, local authorities, enterprises, trade unions and different citizens’ associations — especially local development associations, non-governmental organisations, charitable organisations, parishes and so on — have been heavily supported by Portuguese public and European Funds.

At an advanced adult education level, some universities provide courses for older people and the Open University offers advanced learning opportunities and in-service teacher training.

At the same time, the increasing social awareness of the strategic priority of adult education is leading to a diversification of the traditional adult education providers and a progressive de-schooling of the provision of adult education. It is generally accepted that this diversity of supply matches the equally diverse demand from the different regions and the different types of adult population, especially in the light of low levels of qualification and high rates of early school leaving in Portugal.

At a central level, inter-ministerial cooperation is the object of legislation and primarily involves the education and labour sectors of governance. This cooperation is visible in the form of policy planning, curricular definition and the provision of support, supervision and assessment.

The same cooperation is pursued at regional and local level. A number of other institutions are involved in partnerships for the provision of adult education and training. One good example of this is the cooperation between the Justice and Education sectors, which is resulting in the provision of different forms of adult education in prisons.

At a regional/local level, a variety of different partnerships involving schools, professional training agencies, the industrial sector, civic associations, social organisations and local authorities are developing in Portugal.

This is reversing the traditional tendency for public organisations to monopolise the planning and provision of adult education. In a country with a long-established tradition of top-down initiatives, both individuals and organisations are slowly learning the benefits of working in partnership with others, and spontaneous networks are emerging at the local level.

The increase in the levels of the Portuguese population’s schooling and its empowerment for a lifelong learning have been among the concerns that are driving the provision of recurrent 66 Private and social organisations can be accredited as training organisations by an accreditation process

supervised by the Institute for the Innovation in Training, a public department that possesses this specific competence.

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education and training, in which the courses at the different levels can be given at public, private or cooperative teaching establishments or by any other public or private body. Anyone is free to create them, on condition that they guarantee their academic and pedagogical quality and secure the proper recognition. The state supports the creation and operation of recurrent education and training courses by providing appropriate forms of financial, academic and pedagogical assistance, depending on the activity plan of the body responsible and the assessment that is made of its execution.

The activities outside the education and training system can take place either within the scope of organisational structures that form a cultural extension of the school system, or in open systems, using media resources and suitable and specific technologies. Besides the state itself, local authorities, cultural and recreational associations, trade unions and diverse civic organisations are just some of the bodies which promote extra-scholastic activities in the adult education domain. However, the state is responsible for providing incentives for, and supporting and promoting the articulation of, all these initiatives, on condition that their educational and training value is guaranteed.

When it comes to providing incentives for civil society to take part in the educational process, pride of place is attached to the participation of parents and other persons with responsibility for children’s education, via the organisations that represent them at both the individual school and national levels. This is fulfilled by means of the organisation of and collaboration in initiatives designed to promote the improved quality and humanisation of schools, in actions that promote pupil learning and assiduity and in projects aimed at schools’ socio-educational development.

In parallel to this, the Statute governing Pupils in Non-Higher Education gives parents and other persons with the same responsibility competencies to direct the education of the children and young people in their charge by promoting the articulation of the education that is provided in the family and that which is provided at school, contributing to the creation and execution of the school educational project and internal regulations, and participating in school life.

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3. THE MAIN CHALLENGES FACING US AT THE START OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalisation becomes a positive force for all the world’s people. Inclusive globalisation must be built on the great enabling force of the market, but market forces alone will not achieve it. It requires a broader effort to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity.

Kofi Annan, Human Development Report 2003.

The current process of globalisation is having an unequal effect on the world’s population. Some of us are benefiting from it, but at the same time it is generating imbalances among those who are not in a position to take advantage of the good things it brings with it. Of all the sectors that can lead to a fair and solidary globalisation, pride of place is taken by education, which bears a heavy responsibility to society. It is education and training that provide individual people with the means to achieve their professional fulfilment and personal development and be active citizens; nor should we underestimate the role it plays in the creation of social cohesion by preventing discriminatory and exclusive situations and promoting values such as tolerance and respect for human rights.

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3.1. INCREASING THE LEVELS OF QUALIFICATION OF THE PORTUGUESE POPULATION

If we look at a balance sheet of what has happened over the last few years, we can see that there has been an undeniable recognition of the structural weaknesses of Portugal’s qualification and employment systems and education and training systems, which are elements that condition the country’s capacity to compete on a European scale and within the context of the investment in the transition to a Knowledge and Innovation-driven Society founded on the European social model.

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, in the year 2000 8.9% of Portugal’s active population did not possess any level of schooling whatsoever, 33.9% had at most four years of education, and 21.4% no more than six years. In all, 64.2% of the active population — 3,138,500 adults — had not completed nine years of compulsory education and thus, a priori, possessed low levels of literacy.

Table XXXIII

Active Population by Level of Education — mainland Portugal (2000)

Level of education Nº %

None 433 200 8,9

Basic education 1st Cycle (4 years) 2nd Cycle (6 years) 3rd Cycle (9 years)

1 659 700 1 045 600

715 900

33,9 21,4 14,6

Secondary education 585 400 12,0

Higher education 452 200 9,2

Total 4 892 000 100,0

Source: National Institute of Statistics (2001).

The indicators that show the population’s basic qualifications (education + training) and advanced training, the ways in which businesses are managed and organised, the high levels of bureaucracy (in which everything gets bogged down), and the lack of initiative on the part of both the public and the private sectors, continue to come last in a ranking of 49 national economies (33 OECD and 16 emerging economies).

In this respect, even if we move ahead to 2004, Portugal displays a very high level of low qualifications and above all the slowest capacity for recovery of any European country. The weaknesses of our qualifications, as gauged by both businesses and the statistical system, are manifest.

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Table XXXIV International Comparison of the Proportion of the Employed Population

with Low levels of Qualification

Country 1992 1995 2004

(Forecast DE/MQE)

Portugal 77,4 75,6 68,4

Spain 68,2 62,5 42,9

Italy 57,8 55,3 43,9

Greece 58,1 52,5 40,2

United Kingdom 46,7 42,7 36,7

Ireland 46,1 41,2 30,8

France 60,1 32,7 23,3

Belgium 37,6 32,8 22,1

Denmark 27,5 20,2 18,4

Germany 17,4 15,9 16,7

Note: Low levels of qualification are defined as levels 0 to 2 of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED - UNESCO) — that is to say a basic education of 9 years or less.

Sources: EUROSTAT and Statistics Department – Ministry of Qualification and Employment (1999).

When it comes to the vulnerabilities of the way in which academic and non-academic qualifications are structured within our employment system, the National Employment Plan cross-references the two types of qualification possessed by workers in third-party employment.

Table XXXV Distribution of Full-time Employees by Levels of Academic and Non-academic Qualifications

(1998)

Senior

managers Middle

managers Foremen Highly

qualified professionals

Qualified professionals

Semi-qualified

professionals

Unqualified professionals

Labourers and

apprentices

Total %

9th grade

or less 19,4 32,5 78,2 50,2 80,2 90,5 91,7 79,2 76,7

9th to

12th

grade

16,1 27,2 15,8 33,4 17,4 9,2 8,1 18,6 16,3

Short or full university degree

64,5 40,3 6,0 16,4 2,4 0,4 0,2 2,2 7,0

Total 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0

Source: Labour, Employment and Professional Training Statistics Department — Ministry of Labour and Solidarity (October 1998). In National Employment Plan — annual revision 2001.

This legitimates the attention that we must continue to pay to lifelong education and training, particularly as regards: i) not only pre-school age children, on the presupposition that this is the phase that determines a long and successful education in the future and in which children learn

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to like to learn; but also ii) young people, especially those who are looking to achieve insertion into the working world; and iii) adults, and among them, the most disadvantaged.

In its role as a prospective and strategic global framework of reference, the Lifelong Learning Strategy referred to above represents the stabilisation of a philosophy of a coordinated and integrated approach to the various aspects of learning, starting with the assumption of the broadest possible concept (involving pre-school education, basic, secondary and higher education, initial training, continuous training, adult education and training, and above all an improved articulation between education, training and employment). It offers the advantage of being one more point at which to systematise the intervention of our national policies in this area and to formalise objectives that will help bring the Portuguese population’s levels of schooling and qualification closer to those of the rest of Europe.

Above all, the document clearly assumes the role of a framework of reference for the development of our education and training systems and subjects them to a great deal of pressure to achieve.

In order to operationalise the major objectives it identifies:

to improve the quality of basic education,

to expand and diversify the initial training given to young people, inside and outside the formal education system,

to improve the qualifications and ensure the employability of adults at an active age, be they in employment or not and

to develop a national competency training, certification and development system in relation to the use of ICT,

the Lifelong Learning Strategy selects a set of areas of intervention as quantified targets that are considered to be of key importance, not only to fighting the phenomenon of early school leaving, but also to making a greater qualification of the adult population viable.

In parallel, among the Major Policy Options for 2003-2006, which we have also talked about earlier, it is particularly worth noting the option to “Invest in the qualification of the Portuguese population” by pursuing a multifaceted policy in education, professional training and research that is centred on upgrading and making valuable use of human resources — an essential task for Portugal, given the country’s relative lack of natural resources and the lag in the qualification of its population.

Also at this level, in responding to the challenges of the knowledge and innovation-driven society, the Basic Law on Education bases the whole of its dynamic on the citizen, by seeking to upgrade his/her education and training from the perspective of a continuum of learning. Qualifying the country’s human resources from a lifelong learning point of view requires the articulation at national level of the education and training policies and their articulation with the employment policy, thereby enabling everyone to gain access to the basic, critical competencies that make it easier to integrate innovation and knowledge into the economy.

Only an investment that confirms and lends pride of place to the complementarity of the qualification of young people and adults in a country in which, for several generations, the qualification and certification gap actually grew wider, can lead to the renewal of Portugal’s social and economic development that stands out as the great priority for this decade.

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3.2. PREVENTING PEOPLE FROM LEAVING SCHOOL AND THE EDUCATION SYSTEM EARLY

A look at the data on young people’s participation and success in basic and secondary education reveals a problematic situation that it has not proved possible to resolve within the context of Portuguese education and training system.

The phenomenon whereby young people leave school and the education and training system before they should (normally associated with the insertion into the job market of young people who have not successfully completed their compulsory education and do not possess any professional training) is still an issue that demands an urgent solution — a solution which can only result from a concerted effort by the Ministries of Education and of Social Security and Labour that manages to mobilise the entire universe of actors in the whole of society to this end.

In the last few years the Ministry of Education’s role in this fight has included implementing Programmes and measures such as:

the creation of Alternative Curricula (Order nº 22/SEEI/96, dated 30th April 1996), which are justified by the need to provide schools with the conditions required to develop and implement differentiated pedagogical formats by adapting teaching strategies to the needs of each pupil/student or group of students. Up until the current academic year, this measure has benefited around 32,500 young people and adults;

the Programme for Integrating Young People into the Active Life (Council of Ministers Resolution nº 44/97, dated 20th February 1997), which included a set of measures that were concerted by the different government departments with responsibility for intervening in relation to youth 67, and focused on three main areas: the provision of information and vocational/professional guidance; vocational education and professional training; and support for young people’s professional insertion and access to jobs 68;

the Initial Vocational Education and Training Courses (Joint Order nº 123/97, dated 7th July 1997), which create the conditions needed to enable young people to attend compulsory education by making sure that those who do not wish to go on with their studies straight away can opt for qualifying vocational training instead;

the Integrated Education and Training Programme (Joint Order nº 882/99, dated 15th October 1999), which incorporates a diverse range of measures and actions that are primarily targeted at achieving reinsertion into education or training, either by means of integration into a regular academic path, or via the construction of alternative paths;

the 15-18 Programme (Order nº 19971/99, dated 20th October 1999), which formed part of the measures designed to make the available curricula more flexible, particularly in such a way as to ensure that pupils attended compulsory education and acquired core competencies which enabled them to effectively integrate themselves into the working world and gain access to education and training paths, all from the perspective of lifelong learning 69;

the 10th Vocational Grade, which was created in 2001 (Joint Order nº 665/2001, dated 21st July 2001) with the primary objective of securing level 2 professional qualification for young people who had successfully completed the 9th grade at school and did not

67 Ministry of Education, Ministry for Qualification and Employment, Secretary of State for Youth. 68 This Programme ended in 2000. 69 This Programme ended in 2002.

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want to pursue their studies straight away, and for those who had attended but not completed secondary education and wanted a professional qualification 70.

A variety of factors are contributing to the fact that this fight has not yet led to the desired results. The most important are:

o

o

the Portuguese job market continues to be a major consumer of cheap, unqualified labour; this stimulates the early insertion of young people with no qualifications and little schooling, and even penalises their more qualified peers (one example of the latter effect is the recent rise in the number of unemployed graduates with a bacharelato or licenciatura);

the vast majority of households still possess low levels of schooling and continue to experience economic difficulties — factors that in turn cause their children to fail academically and seek early insertion into the job market as a means of supporting their families.

At this stage, the decision to bet on the universalisation of access to education and the multiple reforms undertaken in search of more appropriate curricular responses have not led to the hoped-for improvement in the quality of learning.

In parallel we have witnessed a devaluation within the scope of the education system of those paths that include vocational components.

The establishment of European education and training goals to be achieved by 2010 highlights the shortfall in terms of young people’s participation and success in secondary education, particularly in terms of attendance and completion of this level of education by young people between the ages of 18 and 25.

The National Plan for Preventing Early School Leaving seeks a response that articulates education and training and their many promoters, in such a way as to prevent people from leaving school, motivate them to achieve academic success and thus avoid their insertion into the working world with few qualifications.

The National Plan for Preventing Early School Leaving is being worked out and is beginning to function over the course of 2004, and is scheduled for application until the end of 2010 — a period that includes a defined timetable for the definition and start-up of some of its recommendations and proposals. The Plan supports a number of actions and measures that are already operational, defines others that are to begin in the very near future and schedules others for commencement over the course of the next three years. Finally, it proposes both an annual assessment and an interim review in 2007. Its recommendations fall into four main categories:

1. Integrate at school, support development and promote success. In this respect the more important measures include:

the creation of the role of ‘school tutor’, whose job is to identify and follow children at risk and to mediate with the applicable School Social Support Centre — a body that is planned as part of the future organisation of special education;

the articulated intervention of the School Social Support Centres and the Programme to Prevent and Eliminate the Exploitation of Child Labour;

70 Revoked in March 2004.

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o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

in basic education, the reinforcement of educational complements in the Portuguese Language and Mathematics areas by means of the creation of three plans — one for Portuguese as a Non-Mother Tongue, one for Promoting Reading and Writing, and one called Support for the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics;

the organisation and funding of an extra-curricular activity programme;

the development of school sports activities;

the creation of a programme to promote parents and families’ involvement with school;

the creation of alternative training programmes for students who suffer from academic failure, which will lead to partial certificates of competency, particularly in the information and communication technologies field.

2. Give school a sense of usefulness and vocation, with proposals such as:

by 2010, double the number of places in secondary level vocational and technological education and training;

by 2006, form the EDUTEC network of 15 to 20 public schools, which will constitute points of reference thanks to their innovative education/training projects, will form part of the new complete secondary education system, and will promote the development of entrepreneurship among young people;

provide access to a professionally qualifying level 2 option from the age of 15 onwards;

make young people who have dropped out of the education/training process early — especially those who began but did not complete the final years in a cycle (9th and 12th grades) — aware of the need to return to it.

3. Attach added social value to school in general and twelve years of compulsory education in particular, via campaigns to raise families’ awareness of the need to complete compulsory education and to make employers understand that they must not hire minors and must qualify their employees.

4. Support a policy of inter-ministerial articulation and the involvement of society, by means of proposals such as:

involve agents in the public, social and sectors, so that together they can prevent early school leaving at both the local and the national levels;

create an inter-ministerial Technical Commission to define, supervise and assess the various National Plan for Preventing Early School Leaving measures.

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3.3. PROMOTING AN ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP

By launching a debate on both the European and national scales on an overall lifelong learning strategy, the «Memorandum on Lifelong Learning» of the European Commission, that resulted from the Lisbon European Council in March 2000 has called attention to a Europe that is transitioning to an economy and a society based on knowledge and innovation.

Within this framework, access to up-to-date information and knowledge and the motivation and competencies to use those resources intelligently for one’s own and/or the community’s benefit are becoming the key to reinforcing Europe’s competitiveness and improving the employability and adaptability of the workforce.

It has also called our attention to a complex European political and social area in which people are more than ever expected to make an active contribution to society by learning to intervene in diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic contexts. It is thus felt that education and training in the broadest sense of the terms are fundamental to learning to understand the process of answering these challenges.

These two closely interrelated faces of social and economic change contain two central objectives for lifelong learning: i) to promote an active citizenship; and ii) to foster employability.

An active citizenship practised by people who take part in every sphere of social and economic life and who, whatever their age and situation, are equipped with the instruments that are indispensable to their personal development, their social insertion and their active participation in the world to which they belong; and employability, as the ability to get a job and then keep it, are both based on a fundamentally new approach to education and training that requires participation by all — people and institutions.

Clearly set within the framework of these presuppositions, this is also the vision that underlies the Basic Law on Education:

The fundamental mission of education is today, more than ever, to supply each person with the means to develop and use all his/her potential, so as to exercise an autonomous, aware, responsible and creative freedom. It is thus necessary to ensure an education which, in a conjugated and sequential manner, pursues the aims of learning to be and to live together, learning to be, learning to do, and learning to think and to autonomously take know-how and competencies to a greater depth. This is a new strategic vision for education in Portugal.

In adopting this strategic vision for education and training as its own, the Directorate-General of Vocational Training 71 is playing a fundamental role in providing both young people and adults with the means which, while centred on their personal and professional needs, expectations and projects, enable them to constructively and autonomously respond to a world that is constantly changing and is becoming more and more demanding.

At this level, the creation and consolidation of flexible solutions that articulate education and training via modular paths, together with the expansion of processes for recognising, validating and certifying know-how and competencies that have been acquired over the course of a person’s life, in association with the development of a system which provides information, vocational guidance and support for the transition to the working world and sustains informed,

71 For information on the Directorate-General of Vocational Training, see Part I, 1.3.3.

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qualifying vocational choices, all stand out as primary instruments with which to reinforce and facilitate the academic and professional qualification of both young people and adults and thus promote an active and aware citizenship on the part of the Portuguese population.

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3.4. MULTICULTURALISM AND INTEGRATION AT SCHOOL

The mobility of the population has been significantly altering the composition of today’s societies, the multiculturalism and intercultural nature of which constitute the cultural dimension of the globalisation process that is under way at the moment.

The recent phenomenon of mass immigration into our country, which is making us live with a whole variety of realities, is one of the challenges that are facing us at the beginning of this century.

The socio-cultural heterogeneity of the children, young people and adults who go to our schools is growing in extent in today’s Portuguese education system and is taking on characteristics that are particularly significant. In this respect, and looking at schools as a privileged space for the pursuit of the educational function, a survey has been carried out on situations in which people for whom Portuguese is not their mother tongue are engaged in learning — situations that in one way or another require a careful analysis with a view to the promotion of the equal educational access and success of the pupils concerned.

The diagnosis to which the Portuguese school population in the basic education system was subjected during the 2001/2002 academic year, with particular attention to pupils for whom Portuguese is not a mother tongue, concluded that in the public system 17,535 pupils whose mother tongue is not Portuguese were receiving compulsory education 72. The same study identified around 180 different languages spoken by a total of 140 minorities.

Given the growth of the immigrant community in Portugal and the increasing number of school pupils who speak Portuguese as a non-mother tongue, in 2003 a working group was formed in order to think about and submit proposals for teaching the Portuguese language to pupils of other nationalities and from other cultures, for whom Portuguese is not a mother tongue. To this end the idea was to carry out a diagnosis of the situations being experienced in schools and of the latter’s needs and expectations, in such a way as to get a detailed picture of the real situation.

On the basis of this characterisation exercise, a number of hypotheses for intervention plans were drawn up with the intention on the one hand of complying with the provisions of the Law, and on the other of including those curricular alterations that were considered to be fundamental. To this end a short-term programme (2003/2005) for implementing the decisions that were taken was worked out. It provides for an update of the diagnosis of the situation of pupils who do not speak Portuguese as their mother tongue and for the undertaking of a set of actions designed to support them — particularly continuous teacher training and a survey of projects and studies, as well as the creation of a database and the dissemination of a variety of materials.

The intercommunicability of education systems and school education formats is ensured by processes that establish equivalences between studies. Executive Law nº 219/97, dated 20th August, sets out the regime governing the grant of equivalence to or the recognition of academic qualifications, studies and diplomas from foreign education systems in relation to Portuguese qualifications, studies and diplomas at the basic and secondary education levels. Equivalence can be granted for the purpose of pursuing studies, entering or accessing careers in the public

72 Nine years of compulsory education, according to the terms of the Basic Law on the Education System in

force.

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administration, for military ends or any other purposes in relation to which the applicant demonstrates a legitimate interest. The equivalence of academic qualifications does not presuppose a complete similarity between the curricular structures and programmatic contents of the corresponding grade years, but only a parallelism in the overall education secured by means of their successful completion.

Given the migratory flows that have been coming from European countries — particularly those in the eastern part of the continent — and Brazil, and given the fact that some of those countries do not yet have institutionalised representations, such as an embassy or a consulate, in Portugal, the Ministry of Education has been confronted with very large numbers — as many as 3,500 to 4,000 per annum — of requests for equivalence. At present the circumstances and the problems that this volume of requests has engendered have led to the creation of a working group, the objective of which is to update the existing legislation in order to cover all the possible situations and define new tables, in such a way as to provide a decentralised, appropriate and effective response in each case.

Guided as they are by principles of social cohesion, the contents of the programmes of all the various subjects embody concerns such as that for an education which promotes values, environmental education, citizenship, social solidarity and the new information and communication technologies, all with a view to:

ensuring understanding of and respect for the diversity of customs and cultures on the regional, national and international levels;

making people aware of the relationships that connect man to his physical and cultural environment and thereby promote an improvement in that environment and respect and protect nature, our heritage and everything that belongs to mankind as a whole;

developing the capacity to, individually or in a group, create new things on the material, spiritual and aesthetic level;

developing the capacity to learn to learn and to learn to undertake.

The fact is that each society is responsible for creating its own cohesion via the culture and values it embodies, which, in time, constitute its cultural heritage. Education’s mission is to give every single person the means he/she needs to really make that heritage a part of him/herself.

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IIII

HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL YOUNG PEOPLE:

CHALLENGES, TENDENCIES AND PRIORITIES

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Over the last few years Portugal’s decision to invest in a high quality basic education for all, which is seen as a key element in a lifelong education and training process, has been bearing concrete fruit. A significant part of the public resources dedicated to education and training have been invested in this field, in which the foremost areas of intervention have been:

the expansion of the offer of pre-school education in Portugal and the guarantee that the educational component of this subsystem is made available free of charge;

a more in-depth articulation between the three basic education cycles, as embodied in the new law governing the autonomy and management of teaching establishments, and in the process of reorganising the basic education curricula, which was adopted in schools in the 2001/2002 academic year;

the reinforcement of the strategies for pedagogical differentiation and pupil support, as a way of fighting school failure and early school leaving, with particular emphasis on the inclusion in the basic education curricula of specific times and strategies to reinforce learning and prepare pupils for an active citizenship, such as the supervised study, civic education and the project area;

within the overall framework of the strategies for fighting school exclusion, the consolidation of the diversification of the offer of education and training to young people who did not complete their basic education at the normal time, thereby making it possible to differentiate between them in accordance with their needs, expectations and age groups. In this way young people are being offered alternative curricula, education courses and initial vocational training as alternative formats via which to add value to, and make valuable use of, the interaction between the educational and the vocational or vocational components, thus making it easier for these young people to achieve insertion into the working world;

the flexibilisation of the mechanisms for horizontal mobility between secondary education courses, as embodied in the possibility of diversifying the organisation of the individual training itineraries in each course and thus reorienting a pupil’s training path;

the expansion of the number of people who take, and the consolidation of the offer of, professional paths within the overall scope of secondary education, particularly the level 2 professional courses (which were provided for in the Agreement on the Employment Policy, Job Market, Education and Training which the government and the social partners entered into in February 2001), but also the level 3 courses and the level 4 technological specialisation courses, which prepare intermediate-level technical specialists for various sectors of activity;

the consolidation of practises involving partnerships between schools and both higher and non-higher level training structures, particularly professional training centres and polytechnics, as well as partnerships between schools and the business world;

the strengthening of monitoring, integrated assessment and quality incentive mechanisms, particularly via the integrated school assessment process that began in the 2000/2001 academic year and the basic and secondary education observatories.

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1. EDUCATION AND GENDER EQUALITY

The subject of gender equality brings to mind innumerable events with different natures and outcomes which occurred over the course of the 20th century and which helped to increase society’s awareness of this issue — an issue that, despite the advances that have already been made, has not yet achieved a final resolution. Proof of this is provided by the 1995 Beijing Declaration, in which education as a fundamental human right is seen as a key instrument for equality, development and peace. Gender equality in the lifelong access to and achievement of qualifications contributes to a balanced relationship between men and women and is an indicator of the extent to which democracy has developed. In this context, the construction of the knowledge and innovation-driven society 73, which is inclusive in nature, guarantees everyone — women and men — the freedom to create, receive, share and use information and knowledge. More recently, for the 2001-2005 period the European Commission has laid down a framework strategy for equality between men and women in which, given the decisive part they play in determining behaviour, attitudes and values, education and training are a key domain in the promotion of a change in gender roles and stereotypes.

In Portugal, gender equality is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. Given its personalist nature, the dynamic of the knowledge society itself is based on every individual, be they woman or man.

In educational terms, school curricula are the same for girls and boys and all the state schools and the great majority of the private ones are co-educational. Where teaching materials are concerned, the analytical grids that teachers use during the phase in which the manuals for the various subjects are adopted by schools, require them to make a judgement as to the existence of sexist stereotypes or any other kinds of discrimination.

73 Lisbon European Council, 23rd-24th March 2000.

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2. EDUCATION AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

Over the last few decades Portuguese society has undergone some huge transformations. Traditionally known as a country that exported labour, in the 1990’s Portugal turned into a destination for large numbers of immigrants, initially from Africa and more recently from Eastern Europe: Cape Verde, Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and the Ukraine are the main countries of origin. The fact is that the multinational characteristics of today’s Portuguese society require the intervention of a whole range of sectors to “welcome and integrate” the newcomers — the motto and field of action of the High Commissioner for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities.

Cultural diversity and differences and their public expression in customs, religion and lifestyles do not always facilitate the integration of immigrants, and the second generations of immigrant and ethnic minority families are among the most vulnerable social groups. The increase in unemployment, drug addiction and AIDS are other problems that are affecting Portuguese society, in which they are responsible for a rise in poverty and are putting children in danger of social exclusion.

In response to these issues Portugal now has a vast range of instruments with which to pursue its social policies, which, by making it possible to stimulate interventions designed to resolve the problems of the most disadvantaged communities, are largely responsible for the awakening of interest in community development dynamics and, inasmuch as they presuppose working in partnerships, are promoting the implementation and growth of a strong culture of inter-institutional cooperation.

The operationalisation, under the oversight of the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, of the National Action Plan for Inclusion since 2001 has led to a clear increase in the dynamic of the initiatives targeted at the integrated development of geographic areas confronted with the issue of exclusion. These initiatives, which are aimed at urban and rural communities with a high concentration of situations of poverty and exclusion, promote interventions designed to ensure access to proper housing, healthcare, security, justice, services, culture, leisure, education, training and quality employment. The priorities for integrated interventions that are especially targeted at children and young people particularly include:

breaking the cycle of reproduction of social exclusion, by providing children and young people with education/training, with special emphasis on strengthening pre-school education, school education and initial youth training and thereby fighting early school leaving;

fostering the creation and development of cultural habits and new audiences for culture by providing incentives for people to read, visit museums and take part in cultural and artistic projects — especially in the school context — and by increasing the number of trips to performances and shows;

furnishing young people with opportunities to participate in healthy activities and preventing dangerous practises, by upgrading and making valuable use of associative structures and other bodies dedicated to occupying children and young people’s free time.

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One example of a best practise in this field is the “Choices Programme”, which is an inter-ministerial initiative that is seeking to:

prevent crime and promote the insertion of the young people from the most vulnerable neighbourhoods of the Districts of Lisboa, Porto and Setúbal;

ensure the personal and social, education and professional training, and the education/training of the young people’s parents in the communities covered by the Programme;

stimulate partnerships between public services and the communities in the selected neighbourhoods;

promote the articulation of the actions work with those of the Commissions for the Protection of Children and Young People and any other partnerships that may exist in the areas in question.

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3. EDUCATION AND COMPETENCIES FOR LIFE

In a world that is experiencing an accelerated rate of change, in which globalisation and technological advances are having unavoidable implications for the daily lives of individual people and for society in general, education and training systems cannot distance themselves and remain aloof from the transformations that are going on around them. School must necessarily reflect the effects of these social, economic and political transformations, fully accept its own role as a factor for change, and make the new generation ready to actively intervene in the world in which it is inserted by engaging in an aware and a committed citizenship.

The text of the Basic Law on Education uses the concept of education in a wide-ranging way that embraces the notions of both education and training. It provides for the global reorganisation of the education system, including the basic and secondary levels, each of which will now last for six years 74 divided into two cycles. The 3rd — and currently last — basic education cycle will thus now become the 1st cycle of the future secondary education system.

Accordingly, the 1st cycle of the new secondary education, which is intended for young people between the ages of 12 and 15, will cease to possess the nature of a final phase 75 and will become a cycle that prepares pupils for the next stage. It will play a determining role in the success of an effective twelve years of compulsory schooling and will include a vocational guidance function that will be decisively important in ensuring that young people are in a position to make criteria-based choices with an improved knowledge of their own interests and capabilities, the educational and training opportunities the system has to offer and the realities of the labour world.

The curricular organisation that still holds sway at the moment and was instituted by the Basic Law on the Education System, did not — at least explicitly — make the development of competencies the foundation stone of the way in which curricula were designed. The competencies that it seeks to develop are more or less implicitly derived from the objectives that were set for the two levels of education: basic and secondary. Having said this, following a period of experimentation that was known as the Flexible Management of the Curriculum, a number of alterations have been made to the basic education curricula since the existing curricular organisation was worked out.

The guidelines for these curricular changes, which are set out in the curricular reorganisation that took effect in 2002, are based on the principle of the need to develop essential competencies. The design of the curriculum for the three cycles of the present nine years of compulsory education is laid out in the document entitled National Curriculum — Essential Competencies, which defines the competencies of a general nature that must be developed over the course of the three basic education cycles, together with the specific ones that concern each 74 For information on the organisation of basic and secondary education, see Part I, 1.3.8 and 1.3.9. 75 Compulsory education will now include another three-year cycle, in which it will be justified to prepare

pupils for differentiated paths that will enable them to pursue their studies or achieve insertion into the active life.

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of the academic subject and non-academic-subject areas. In this context, the creation of three non-academic curricular areas — Pro-Citizenship Education, the Supervised Study and the School Area — was intended to lead to the development of transversal competencies, as well as to the acquisition and development of specific forms of know-how and knowledge in the fields of the more traditional subjects.

In the curricular reorganisation of basic education, school takes on the role of a privileged space for pro-citizenship education that is able to integrate into and articulate within the curriculum it offers, diversified learning experiences that constitute spaces for the effective involvement of pupils, and activities that support their studies. The central objective of pro-citizenship education is to contribute to the construction of pupils’ identity and the development of their civic conscience and awareness. To this end, health education, sex education, road sense and the highway code and environmental education must be addressed in both the academic and the non-academic areas of the curriculum.

In basic education, pro-citizenship education, teaching people to attach value to the human aspect of work and the use of information and communication technologies are transdisciplinary forms of training, and in the 9th grade information and communication technologies are a mandatory subject for all pupils.

The secondary education curricula have also been subjected to changes in the shape of the reformulation of programmes in various subjects and the creation of new study plans. Amongst the guidelines for the reform of secondary education, which will take effect in September 2004, the most important are:

the emphasis on developing essential competencies and structuring forms of learning;

the transversality of pro-citizenship education and the additional value attached to the Portuguese language and culture in every component of the curricula;

the increased importance of experimentation, with a view to achieving an improved articulation between theory and practise and developing scientific curiosity and a critical spirit in young people;

the emphasis on learning about information and communication technologies, from the perspective of developing the competencies needed to be able to research, manage and select information.

Within the broader framework of the revision of the guidelines for the organisation and management of the secondary education curriculum, the diversification of the education and training on offer by accentuating their specificity in accordance with the nature of each course, leads us on to the central place that has been given to the investment in vocational education and training. By allying general training with scientific and technological training, its configuration makes it possible to prepare young people for their insertion into the active life, whilst in parallel enshrining the possibility for them to pursue their studies, thereby respecting their personal options. Conducted alongside the acquisition of core forms of knowledge and know-how, the training of competencies of a professional nature is fundamental if we are to counter the imbalance that has been growing between the offer of and the demand for intermediate-level managers.

As a European Union Member State, Portugal shares responsibilities for the development of education and training systems that will attain the targets set in the documents to which the representatives of all the various Member States have set their names. As it was referred to in

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Part I, 1. 1, in March 2000 the Lisbon European Council agreed a strategic objective for 2010 designed to make the European Union

[…] the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustaining economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

This strategic objective will lead to changes in national education and training systems within the European Union, and in this respect five areas of “essential new competencies” have already been identified: information and communication technologies, technological culture, foreign languages, entrepreneurship and social competencies.

On the basis of a proposal from the European Commission and the contributions made by the Member States, in March 2001, the Stockholm European Council adopted the «Report on the concrete future objectives of education and training systems». A Detailed Work Programme 76 was then drawn up and was approved by the Barcelona European Council in 2002. It allocates three strategic objectives to the education and training sector: to improve the quality and efficacy of education and training systems; to facilitate access to those systems by everyone; and to open them to the outside world.

This Detailed Work Programme is being undertaken using the so-called Open Method of Coordination — an instrument for developing a coherent and all-embracing strategy for education and training — and is seeking to achieve a more effective convergence of education and training policies. By resorting to indicators, reference figures exchanges of best practises and peer assessment, the Open Method of Coordination permits mutual comparison and learning and limits the risks inherent in the changes and reforms.

The above documents will undoubtedly come to constitute guidelines for the reforms that are to be made as part of the future curricular organisation which will result from the Basic Law on Education.

In the existing framework, both the curricular reorganisation of basic education that has been in place since 2002, and the new secondary education curricula that will be implemented as of September 2004, follow the dominant tendencies with a view to the development of essential competencies and structuring forms of learning for life. Of these forms of learning, the following warrant a particular mention:

information and communication technologies, as an instrument that facilitates access to knowledge and promotes the competencies needed to research and select information;

language teaching, as a factor that is essential to the promotion of mobility and the preservation of linguistic diversity;

the development of an open attitude towards difficulties, which is of primordial importance in societies that are more and more heterogeneous and marked by ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious and other forms of diversity;

the development of the taste for learning, with a view to fostering intellectual curiosity and the need for and interest in lifelong learning, which is in turn an essential condition

76 “Detailed Work Programme on the follow up of the objectives of education and training systems in

Europe” adopted by the Member States of the European Union, candidate countries, and EFTA/EEA countries and a number of international organisations (UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Europe).

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if citizens are to remain up to date in a world that is in a constant and accelerated process of change.

The development of competencies, which is already incorporated into the existing curricular organisation, is suitably articulated with the objectives that have been set for the education and training systems of the future. It will thus be important to ensure that the work that the Ministry of Education — which now has more effective responsibilities in relation to the articulation of the education and training policies — is currently undertaking, consolidates and deepens the guideline for the development of competencies for the new millennium, on the supposition that the capacities and attitudes which equip a person to engage in a profession represent a form of human capital at the level of society as a whole. Similarly, that which is an active citizenship at the individual level turns into social capital at the societal level; while, in turn, personal and collective fulfilment and achievement lead to an increase in cultural capital.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development document entitled “Defining and selecting competencies: theoretical and conceptual bases” distinguishes between three great types of competency: i) communicational — the capacity to speak, listen, read, write, negotiate and mediate, ii) analytical — the capacity to operate within formal systems of logic in order to create models and display sociological imagination and iii) personal — the capacity to display emotional balance.

These are the essential prerequisites for achieving the objectives of the Lisboa Strategy, which are based on economic growth and stability, job creation and the consolidation of social cohesion.

The joint interim report of the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the detailed work programme on the follow-up of the objectives of education and training systems in Europe, entitled «Education and Training 2010» The Success of the Lisbon Strategy Hinges on Urgent Reforms, of April 2004, stresses in particular the efforts which Member States should undertake to make lifelong learning a concrete reality and to equip all citizens with the key competencies they need. In this context,

[…] individuals’ personal development and fulfilment, their social and vocational integration and any subsequent learning is largely dependent on the acquisition of a package of key competencies by the end of obligatory schooling.

That package could include

[…] communication in the mother tongue and in foreign languages, mathematical literacy and basic competencies in science and technology, ICT skills, learning-to-learn skills, interpersonal and civic competencies, entrepreneurship and cultural awareness.

This leads us to note that competencies should be transferable — i.e. applicable in many different situations — and multifunctional, in such a way that they can be mobilised to attain various different objectives, resolve various types of problem and undertake tasks of a variety of natures.

The curricular reorganisation of the existing secondary education 77 is an attempt to reconcile two major objectives: on the one hand, to provide a basic education that is common and accessible to all; and on the other, to offer diversified paths that entail increasing specialisation

77 One three-year cycle, which is taken after completion of a nine-year basic education.

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and are able to match the interests and capacities that young people have displayed up until the 9th grade.

In Portugal there is no selection of young people depending on their results. The psychology and guidance services are responsible for supplying the most complete information possible about the paths that are open to young people, be it in terms of the further pursuit of their studies, or in the area of the training and vocational paths designed to achieve a faster insertion into the active life.

The general educational path is organised into five courses the study plans of which include subjects related to the specific area of knowledge in question. On these educational paths, which besides providing a generalist basic education, also lead to level 3 professional qualification, the system offers two types of course: technological and professional.

On the various education and training paths that the system offers, the curricula reflect the concern to provide an education that promotes values, to develop the capacities and competencies which equip people for an intercultural dialogue, and to respect differences — aspects that go to form the learning content, above all in subjects that make up the general education/training component, which, in the professional courses, is known as the training component.

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4. HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION AND THE KEY ROLE PLAYED BY TEACHERS

The 45th Session of UNESCO’s International Conference on Education adopted the Declaration on «Strengthening the role of teachers in a changing world», in which the Ministers of Education recognised the pivotal part that teachers play as agents for change in education systems. It may well be that curricular alterations which are decided at the highest political and institutional level will not produce the desired effects if teachers are not made aware of the need for them and prepared for the changes in advance. This means that the principle of lifelong education, as a key to social, economic and cultural development, must first be really taken on board by teachers themselves.

As was said earlier, there are some major challenges facing education and training systems at the beginning of the 21st century. Globalisation and technological evolution are requiring schools and teachers to possess and display an enormous ability to adapt.

One example of this is the new technologies that have profoundly altered teaching and learning methods and strategies and the very nature of the teacher-pupil relationship itself. No longer the sole vehicle of knowledge for pupils, whom the new technologies are enabling to construct a progressively more autonomous learning process, teachers will have to be psychologically and pedagogically prepared to accompany other sources of acquiring knowledge and play the role of facilitators and mediators of learning, rather than its transmitters.

We must also be mindful of the question of globalisation, which, in just a few years, is changing the paradigm in which teachers themselves have generally been educated and trained. The fact is that in the last century the institutionalisation of education was largely designed to reinforce national identities which, in some cases, led to the recrudescence of nationalisms that under the wrong kind of leadership have been so destructive for humanity. Today we are witnessing a radical change of perspective to which teachers cannot be “won over” if they are not given the opportunities to receive the appropriate training. The idea is not to do away with the cultural and linguistic differences between peoples, but rather that the argument for diversity should be harmonised with the affirmation of the values of internationalism, social cohesion, non-violence, understanding and mutual respect.

Another aspect in relation to which the role of teachers would appear to be crucial if schools are to fulfil their mission, is the widening of the access to education to include every sector of society. It is not so long since schools were a privileged place to which only the most advantaged gained access — something that made the teacher’s job an easier one. Mass education, the progressive extension of compulsory education and at the same time, the social changes caused by ever more intense migratory flows, have been making the teacher’s function more complex, in that he/she is now called upon to work with more heterogeneous classes and with vulnerable groups that require differentiated strategies.

We have mentioned just a few examples of the new coordinates that are conditioning teachers’ work and requiring them to display malleability, the ability to adapt to change, sensitivity and a spirit of openness. In other words, it is not just at the level of academic knowledge — itself also

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a significant factor in the teaching function in a world in which the progress of academic and scientific knowledge is so rapid — that teachers must remain up to date, but also at the pedagogical and psychosocial level.

The Statute Governing the Teaching Career makes provision for the training needs in this professional sector by stating that promotion is subject to attending continuous training actions which are accredited by the Scientific Council for Continuous Training. For each year that they teach at a given scale in the career, teachers must go on a set number of hours of training, which in turn correspond to a credit (this number varies depending on the type of training in question).

Generally speaking, continuous teacher training is entrusted to the network of School Associations’ Training Centres, which covers the whole country. Training needs are indicated by the schools’ pedagogical bodies. At the national level, each year the Programme for the Educational Development in Portugal funds training and establishes the priorities in the light of the system’s needs.

For example, for various years now training in the new technologies field has been one of the priorities, in recognition of the fact that it is something that needs to be reinforced in the updating of teachers’ competencies.

In both basic and secondary education the new curricular concept that underlies the reorganisation of the curricula has resulted in a major training effort in both non-academic curricular areas and transversal areas — pro-citizenship education, the project area, teaching people to teach how to learn, information and communication technologies, social competencies, and supervised studies — the innovative nature of which mean that they go beyond the logic of a subject-based specialisation, but nevertheless are in conformity with traditional teacher training.

It is clearly of primordial importance to train people how to use information and communication technologies, to respond to the need to innovate in terms of teaching and learning methods and processes, and to adopt assessment practises and instruments which are diverse enough to be able to deal with all the various aspects of learning.

Where secondary education is concerned, in articulation with the Teacher Training Centres and the Regional Directorates of Education, the central service with responsibility for curricular development 78 has done some very substantial work in relation to the training for the new curricula.

In parallel, the implementation of a new form of secondary education curricular organisation and management and, also at secondary level, the investment in ensuring a greater participation by young people in the offers of vocational training, mean that it is necessary to privilege the continuous training of teachers who work in vocational training in such a way as to facilitate:

their adherence to the principle of curricular flexibilisation and modular organisation;

the success of the significant forms of learning at both the level of the integral training of pupils and that of their successful insertion into the working world;

the relationship between forms of learning and the needs of the country’s business fabric, within the context of a knowledge-driven economy.

78 The Directorate-General of Innovation and Curricular Development.

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The responsibility for this training falls to the Directorate-General of Vocational Training, acting in articulation with the Directorate-General of Human Resources in Education, the Consultative Council for Continuous Teacher Training, the School Associations’ Training Centres and the Institute of Employment and Professional Training, Ministry of Social Security and Labour.

In addition to the teaching qualifications they need, teachers who work in special education must possess specialised training from teacher training colleges or other higher education institutions, particularly in the fields of special education, pedagogical supervision, educational guidance, socio-cultural organisation or other specialisations targeted at the support that they must give to pupils. The specialised training area in special education is intended to qualify people to exercise functions involved in providing support and supervision for, and ensuring the socio-cultural integration of, persons with special educational needs. When there are not enough teachers with specialised training to handle the needs, the competent services can select kindergarten and regular teachers who possess training in psychology, education sciences, sociology or other domains, albeit they must give preference to people with experience in one of the areas mentioned above.

In the light of the diverse forms of school learning that we have already talked about, measures designed to prevent early school leaving are clearly an absolute moral, civic and educational requirement. Under the principle of the inclusive school, the education system must prepare itself to host this diversity — a duty which, among other things, means providing teachers with appropriate training. Amongst the different forms of training for those who work with vulnerable groups, one area that stands out due to the significant number of children and young people from immigrant families, is the training of teachers of Portuguese as a non-mother tongue in a multicultural context.

In addition to continuous training, the Ministry of Education provides support for long-duration teacher training by granting Sabbatical Leave 79 and Grantee Status 80, thereby dispensing the recipients from teaching duties in order to take degree, post-graduate, master’s or PhD courses, or to engage in research projects that are relevant to education and teaching. Each year the Ministry issues around 250 Grantee Statuses — which are annual, but can be renewed up to a total of five years in the event that the teacher is taking a PhD — and around 130 Sabbatical Leaves.

79 Regulatory Order nº 93/98, dated 11th March 1998. 80 Regulatory Order nº 31/98, dated 17th April 1998.

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5. EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Since 1995 81 the concept of sustainable development, which initially focused on economic development and the protection of the environment, has broadened to include the notion of social cohesion and thence education and training. This is the perspective that underlies the National Sustainable Development Strategy (ENDS), the report on which was presented for public discussion in August 2002.

Bearing in mind the social dimension of sustainable development, in 2002 the Curricular Reorganisation of Basic Education began with the introduction of new subjects — new non-academic curricular areas and new transversal areas — the most important of which, thanks to the contributions they are making, are pro-Citizenship Education, Project Area and Civic Education.

The new curricular guidelines for the Geography and Natural Sciences subjects reinforce the relationship between science, technology, society and the environment, in a critical approach to economic and technological development/growth. These guidelines make provision for topics related to the appropriate management of natural resources — water, the oceans, fisheries, agriculture, the atmosphere, biodiversity and the forests — which can also be transversally treated in every subject from a Pro-Citizenship Education perspective, as well as in the Project Area and Civic Education.

In partnership with other institutions, the Ministry of Education has taken part in working groups on topics related to sustainable development, such as that charged with drawing up the National Strategic Sustainable Development Intervention Plan, for example. It has also been responsible for the production of a diversified range of materials designed to support teachers within the scope of the implementation of the curricular reorganisation and the new non-academic curricular areas: sex education, environmental education, human rights education, diet and food-related education, pro-citizenship education and consumer education. A CD-ROM has also been created with the objective of promoting citizens’ environmental education, under the title Geography/Education. The Ministry of Education has signed a protocol with the Consumer Defence Association and the Consumer Institute, within the scope of which it has helped to construct a site on education for consumers.

In secondary education, as part of the process of working out and adjusting the curriculum, Pro-Citizenship Education has been transversally adopted in all programmes. In this respect, every subject’s programmes include the development of transversal competencies in the domain of the various aspects of Pro-Citizenship Education, particularly environmental education, road sense and the highway code, and education for consumers, for health and for the media.

In the concrete case of the programmes in the Sciences area, pride of place has been given to the Science/Technology/Society — Environment approach, in which the relationships that are established between the four fields constitute the matrix which integrates the programmes’ topics. The programmes are intended to ensure an integrated teaching of the sciences in all their 81 The Copenhagen Social Summit.

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aspects, from methodology to sociology, in which emphasis is placed on the impact that socio-scientific and technological issues are having on the environment. This is an integrated and contextualised approach to science, which calls for the development of competencies that are essential to the exercise of an informed citizenship that promotes a sustained form of development.

The same context has also seen the creation of a Technological Course on Planning and the Environment, which is designed to provide future intermediate level technical specialists in the planning domain with training in environmental management, education and tourism.

The schools have been developing and implementing environmental education projects, which the Ministry of Education coordinates in a partnership with the Ministry of Cities, Planning and the Environment that also includes local authorities, universities and other government and non-governmental institutions.

Within the ambit of the Cooperation Protocol between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Environment, since 1996 there has existed the position of teachers on detachment to environmental education projects. The latter are currently coordinated by the Environment Institute and take place in basic and secondary schools.

We should also mention the Consumer Education Network, the existence of which was formalised by the signature of a protocol on the 12th of February 2004, and which has undertaken various consumer education projects. This network is managed by a Coordinating Commission composed of representatives from various institutions: the Directorate-General of Curricular Innovation and Development, the Consumer Institute, the Consumer Defence Association, the National Federation of Cooperatives and the General Consumers’ Union. It will also be enjoying the participation of a variety of schools, kindergarten and regular teachers, associations, trainers, consumer education specialists and other parties with an interest in undertaking consumer education projects and sharing experiences in this field.

Work is currently under way on the Consumer Education Project, which is being organised by the Consumer Defence Association in collaboration with the Directorate-General of Curricular Innovation and Development. The idea is to design a consumer education site for use by teachers and pupils.

The Ministry of Education sits on the National Dietary and Nutritional Council, which is the government’s consultative body in the dietary field and possesses competencies in areas related to education about dietary matters and foods. The Ministry is also represented on the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Health and Consumer Protection.

Where publications in the pro-citizenship education area are concerned, the Ministry of Education has coordinated and published a collection of Annotated Resource Guides, which collectively constitutes a survey and systematisation of the materials that are currently available to teachers, pupils and trainers in relation to education about the environment, food and diet, sex and human rights. Various government and non-governmental institutions have also published journals on the environment, the objective of which is to promote citizens’ environmental education.

Within the scope of the perspectives that underlie the experiment-based teaching of the sciences, which argue that an integrating vision of Science should be promoted by establishing

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relationships between it and technology, society and the environment, the former Department of Secondary Education of the Ministry of Education 82 has coordinated and published:

Re(Thinking) Science Teaching, Designing and Implementing Training Actions I and II, and Didactic Materials I and II cover the training plan applicable to the experiment-based teaching of the sciences, the main guidelines and the conceptualisation, implementation and assessment of the training actions in this area, including trainee projects;

Science Exercise Books I and II about teacher support materials in the various scientific subjects and are intended to constitute a space for talking about both scientific and teaching matters;

Communicating Science, designed to disseminate scientific matters, including the Science, Technology, Society/Environment approach and its potential in relation to pro-citizenship education.

The Directorate-General of Vocational Training has been coordinating teacher training actions within the scope of the new programmes, in which the environmental, highway, consumer, health, media and human rights aspects of Pro-Citizenship Education are addressed from a transversal perspective.

The training actions for the new science programmes emphasise the Science, Technology, Society/Environment approach as an integrating science-teaching matrix that seeks to educate citizens via science. The idea is that teaching people about the sciences will help develop competencies which enable pupils to exercise an informed, aware and conscious citizenship at the level of the impact that science and technology are having on society and the environment.

The Ministry of Education sits on the Climate Change Commission — an inter-ministerial commission which is coordinated by the Ministry of Cities, Planning and the Environment and the primary objective of which is to define the national strategy in relation to climate change. The commission is also responsible for drawing up the national reports on this matter, supervising the implementation of the measures, programmes and actions that are ordered by the government, providing technical and scientific assistance to the latter, and proposing such measures as it considers most appropriate for following up the commitments to which Portugal subscribes, particularly within the ambit of the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union.

Aware as it is of the importance of the sea to humanity — clearly illustrated by the work on Agenda 21 (1992) and the Johannesburg Summit (2002) — and of its own oceanic component 83, Portugal, has seen fit to set a national strategy for the oceans, based on their sustainable development and use. To this end, in May 2003 the government created the Strategic Commission of the Oceans, which is made up of ministerial representatives from various sectors, including education. On the 5th of July 2004 the Commission submitted its final report to the government, including 250 proposals that address maritime issues from a long-term perspective. Although this document has not yet been released to the public, we are certain that the education sector is going to play an important part in this matter and that it will be called upon to reinforce and provide a framework for the isolated actions it has pursued to date.

Education for health begins in the family, but extends to the whole of the education system and systematically accompanies every person’s life path.

82 Currently the Directorate-General of Innovation and Curricular Development. 83 The oceanic part of Portugal’s territory is approximately 18 times larger than the country’s land area.

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Given that every child and young person has the right and must be given the opportunity to be educated in a school that promotes health 84, in Portugal there is a National Network of Health Promoting Schools, which was created under a formal partnership between the Ministries of Education and Health. Its purpose is to undertake projects in schools in the health promotion field. The National Network of Health Promoting Schools has evolved very considerably, both in terms of the number of schools and Health Centres involved, and as regards the methods that it has been developing in response to its own objectives and schools’ needs.

The Commission for Coordinating the Promotion of and Education for Health has also been created in the same area. Its competencies are structured in such a way as to ensure the continuity of the actions that are taken to promote and educate for health in schools, by fostering initiative and innovation. The commission’s objective is to ensure a consistent articulation between the Ministries of Education and Health in this matter and to make sure that health-related interventions in the education system take on a structural and permanent nature.

84 1st Conference of the European Network of Health Promoting Schools, Greece, 1997.

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B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Conselho Nacional de Educação (1990). Parecer n.º 2: Educação de Adultos. Ensino Recorrente e Educação Extra-Escolar. (Adult Education. Recurrent and Extra-Curricular Education).

Ministério da Educação (1993). Cadernos de Formação: Formação Individualizada — Fichas Metodológicas (Individualised Training — Methodological Sheets). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1995). Cadernos de Formação: Um dia, Um tema (One day, One theme). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1995). Analfabetismo ou Iletrismo: O que é? Quem são? Onde estão? (Analphabetism or Illiteracy: What is it? Who are they? Where are they?). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1996). Cadernos de Formação: Um dia, Um tema (One day, One theme). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1996). Plano para a Expansão e Desenvolvimento da Educação Pré-Escolar (Plan for the Expansion and Development of Pre-School Education). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1996). Avaliação e Desenvolvimento da Qualidade nos Estabelecimentos da Educação Pré –Escolar: Um Programa de Desenvolvimento Profissional (Assessment and Development of Quality in Pre-School Education Establishments: A Programme for Professional Development). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Conselho Nacional de Educação (1996). Parecer n.º 1: A Educação de Adultos em Portugal no Contexto da Educação ao Longo da Vida. Situações Alternativas (Adult Education in Portugal in the Context of Lifelong Learning. Alternative Situations).

Conselho Nacional de Educação (1997). Recomendação n.º 1: Contributo para a Definição de Políticas Nacionais de Educação e Formação ao Longo da Vida (Contribution for the Definition of National Policies of Education and Lifelong Learning).

Ministério da Educação (1997). Cadernos de Formação n.º 1: Avaliação (Assessment). 2.ª ed. Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1997). Cadernos de Formação n.º 2: Alfabetização (Literacy Activities). 2.ª ed. Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1997). Cadernos de Formação n.º 3: Educação de Adultos (Adult Education). 3.ª ed. Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1997). Orientações Curriculares para a Educação Pré–Escolar (Curricular Guidelines for Pre-School Education). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (1998). Pensar Formação 1. Programa de Formação para Pessoal Auxiliar de Acção Educativa (Designing Training 1. Training Programme for Educational Action Assistants). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

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Ministério da Educação (1998). Colecção CLAIM-ED, n.º 7: Orientações para a Concepção de Materiais de Aprendizagem — Perspectivas Teórico-Práticas (Guidelines for Designing Learning Materials — Theoretical-practical perspectives). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (2001), Currículo Nacional do Ensino Básico, Competências Essenciais (National Curriculum of Basic Education, Basic Competencies). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Ministério da Educação (2001). Pensar Formação 2. Componente de Apoio à Família / Animação Sócio-Educativa, Formação de Animadores (Designing Training 2. Components of Family Support/Socio-Educational Animation, Training of Animators). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Conselho Económico e Social (2001). Acordo sobre Política de Emprego, Mercado de Trabalho, Educação e Formação (Agreement on Employment Policy, Labour Market, Education and Training).

Ministério da Educação (2002). Organização da Componente de Apoio à Família (Organisation of the Family Support Component). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

Comissão Europeia (2002). Educação e Formação na Europa: sistemas diferentes, objectivos comuns para 2010 (Education and Training in Europe: different systems, common objectives for 2010). Bruxelas: Direcção-Geral da Educação e da Cultura.

Ministério da Educação (2002). Centros de Reconhecimento, Validação e Certificação de Competências — Roteiro Estruturante (Centres for Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies — Structuring Roadmap). Lisboa: Direcção-Geral de Formação Vocacional.

Ministério da Educação (2002). Referencial de Competências-Chave para a Educação e Formação de Adultos (Reference Framework of Key Competencies for Adult Education and Training). Lisboa: Direcção-Geral de Formação Vocacional.

Santos, J. Almeida (2002). Diversidade Cultural e Democracia, intervenção nos Encontros Internacionais de Sintra (Cultural Diversity and Democracy). Lisboa: SEDES.

Ministério da Educação (2003). Cursos de Educação e Formação de Adultos Orientações para a Acção (Adult Education and Training Courses. Guidelines for Action). Lisboa: Direcção-Geral de Formação Vocacional.

Ministério da Educação (2003). Caracterização Nacional dos Alunos com Língua Portuguesa como Língua Não Materna (National Characterisation of Pupils for whom Portuguese is a Non-Mother Tongue). Lisboa: Departamento da Educação Básica.

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T a b l e s

I The Organic Structure of the Ministry of Education 29

II Structure of the Education and Training System 34

III Basic Education — curricular components of the 1st cycle 51

IV Basic Education — curricular components of the 2nd cycle 52

V Basic Education — curricular components of the 3rd cycle 53

VI Secondary Education — educational components/course 57

VII Secondary Education — matrix of the scientific/humanistic courses 59

VIII Secondary Education — study plan of a scientific/humanistic course: Science and Technologies 60

IX Secondary Education — matrix of the technological courses 61

X Secondary Education — study plan of a technological course: Equipment Design 62

XI Professional Families that Form the Framework for the Professional Courses 65

XII Professional Families and Outlets to which Priority has been Attached for the 2004/2005 Academic Year

66

XIII Professional Courses — curricular matrix 67

XIV Adult Education and Training Courses — curricular plan 70

XV Adult Education and Training Courses — curricular design 71

XVI Adult Education and Training Courses — the modular design of the training 72

XVII The Actions S@bER+ — organisation and operation 74

XVIII Secondary Education — matrix of specialised artistic courses 77

XIX New Recurrent Education, 3rd Cycle (Experimental Phase) — study plan 79

XX Secondary Recurrent Education — matrix of scientific/humanistic courses 80

XXI Secondary Recurrent Education — matrix of technological courses 81

XXII Vocational Education and Training — evolution of the number of pupils 86

XXIII Professional and Secondary Schools — educational success rates 87

XXIV Professional Schools — employment status of graduates (October 2002) 87

XXV Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competencies Process — evolution of the number of adults taking part in

89

XXVI Network of Adult Education and Training Courses under the Responsibility of the Directorate-General of Vocational Training — evolution

90

XXVII Adult Education and Training Courses completed/under way under the Responsibility of the Directorate-General of Vocational Training and Adults Registered and Certified

90

XXVIII Adult Education and Training Courses — percentile distribution of trainees by training path and by region (2002)

91

XXIX Actions S@bER+ — evolution of the national network co-funded (PRODEP III and POEFDS) 91

XXX Actions S@bER+ co-funded (PRODEP III) — evolution of the number of adults covered by 92

XXXI Actions PRODEP III — indicators showing the physical and financial execution (2000-2003) 105

XXXII Basic Education — assessment 116

XXXIII Active Population by Level of Education — mainland Portugal (2000) 131

XXXIV International Comparison of the Proportion of the Employed Population with Low Levels of Qualification

132

XXXV Distribution of Full-time Employees by Levels of Academic and Non-academic Qualifications (1998)

132

161