Portugal from Re.ViCa

Partners situated in Portugal

• Prof. Vitor Rocio, from the - Open University of Portugal is a member of Re.ViCa's International Advisory Committee.

Portugal in a nutshell

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/po.html

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are also part of Portugal.

Portuguese education policy

The main principles governing the work of the education system reflect the constitutional right to education and the State’s duty to promote democracy in education, as the guarantor of equality of opportunity in terms of both access to education and academic success and of the other conditions required to ensure that education contributes to individual personal development, to social progress and to democratic participation in public life. Respect for the freedom to learn and to teach is guaranteed, and the State may not take it on itself to institute educational or cultural programmes which conform to any particular philosophical, aesthetic, political, ideological or religious systems of belief.

The Basic Educational Law, approved by the Assembly of the Republic in 1986 (Law no. 46/86, of 14 October, subsequently amended in respect of certain clauses by Law no. 115/97, of 19 September) establishes the basic framework for organising and structuring the work of the current education system. This law established minimum schooling of nine years, with a minimum school leaving age of 15.

source: [1]

Portuguese education system

Pre-school education (i.e., "educação pré-escolar") complements and/or supplements the role the family plays in early learning for children aged 3 to 6. Attendance is optional.

• Basic education (i.e., "ensino básico") lasts 9 years and begins at 6 years of age. The education programme at this level aims to provide all individuals with general and common education, enabling them to continue to higher levels of education or to join programmes geared to working life. Basic education involves three successive cycles: 1st cycle of 4 years, 2nd cycle of 2 years, and a 3rd cycle of 3 years. There is also a system of basic education for adults (i.e., "ensino básico recorrente") that provides a second opportunity to those who failed to complete their education at the usual age, or who dropped out of school early, or to those seeking cultural or professional improvement.

• Secondary education in Portugal (i.e., "ensino secundário") corresponds to what in Europe is currently called "Upper Secondary Education". It is structured in different ways to provide general programmes (i.e., "cursos gerais"), aimed at those wishing to continue to higher education, and other programmes aimed at those seeking to enter the labour market. Students may change from one programme to another. Each of these programmes lasts three years, corresponding to the 10th, 11th and 12th grades of school.

Higher education

The higher education system in Portugal is binary, comprising university institutions and polytechnic institutions, which can be public or private. There are more than 150 higher education institutions. The public sector includes 14 universities and a nonintegrated university institution; 15 polytechnics and a number of polytechnic schools integrated in universities; 9 non-integrated nursing schools; 4 university-level military schools; and 5 polytechnic military schools. The private sector includes 34 university level institutions and no less than 66 polytechnics. The private sector also includes a Catholic university. The university and polytechnic subsystems are mainly differentiated by their formative role in research, as is seen, for example, also in Denmark and the Netherlands. The polytechnics are vocationally or professionally oriented and do not carry out fundamental research as the universities do. Only applied research is conducted at the polytechnics.

Source: [[2]] More information [[3]]

Universities in Portugal

The university system has a strong theoretical basis and is highly research-oriented; Degrees in some fields such as medicine, law, natural sciences, economics, psychology or veterinary are university. Other fields like engineering, management, education, agriculture, sports, or humanities are found both in university and polytechnic systems.Many universities are usually organized by Faculty (Faculdade).

The university system, which is the oldest, has its origins in the 13th century. It is composed of thirteen public universities, one public university institute, a public open university, and several private universities and university institutes.

The oldest university is the University of Coimbra founded in 1290, and the biggest by number of enrolled students is the University of Porto with about 28,000 students. The Catholic University of Portugal, the oldest non-state-run university (concordatary status), was instituted by decree of the Holy See and is recognized by the State of Portugal since 1971.

University education can lead to the following degrees: bacharelato (first degree course, normally 3 years’ duration), licenciatura (normally 4 years’ duration), masters’ degrees and doctorates.

Polytechnics in Portugal

The non-university system provides a more practical training and is profession-oriented. Nursing, preschool education, accounting technician, or health care technician degrees, are only offered in the polytechnic system. Institute (Instituto) and School (Escola) are also common designations for autonomous units of Portuguese higher learning institutions, and are always used in the polytechnical system, but also in several universities.

The polytechnic system, that began offering higher education in the 1980s after the former industrial and commercial schools were converted into engineering and administration higher education schools (so its origins could be traced back to some earlier vocational education schools of the 19th century). It is composed of fifteen state-run polytechnic institutes, public and private non-integrated polytechnic institutions, and other similar institutions.

Polytechnic education can lead to a bachalerato or a licenciatura.

Higher education reform

The Bologna Process

Portugal, like other European States, has conducted educational policies and reforms to accomplish these objectives. This include the reorganization of both university and polytechnic subsystems and the implementation of extensive legal and curricular changes. Since its field application in 2006 is has being widely contested by students (many lost an academic year with the change), and several universities had disrepute the concept by introducing integrated master degrees in several courses.

Administration and finance

The budget of public institutions, both universities and polytechnics, comes mainly from the national budget. The public funds allocated are split into current expenditure and investment.(Eurydice, 2000)Until 2003, the education component of the higher education institutions budget was allocated from the Ministry of Education while the research component was allocated from the Ministry for Science and Technology. Since 2003 a single Ministry – Ministry for Science and Higher Education (later Ministry for Science, Innovation and Higher Education and at present Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education) – is responsible for both teaching and research activities. This creates the opportunity to try to integrate strategies and define goals more clearly (Rosa, Veiga and Amaral, 2003). In Portugal public higher education institutions (HEI’s) are almost totally financed by the State. Private institutions do not receive any permanent direct support from the State. However, the State may partly finance their activities through student’s grants, training of academic staff, incentives to investment, support to research projects, merit scholarship for students and support to loan systems or other types of support included in contracts (as established in article 10, point 1 of Law no 1/2003) (Teixeira P., Rosa M.J. and Amaral A.,2003). In the late 1970 and early 1980s, investment in higher education, in particular in the new polytechnics, was supported by World Bank loans. Portugal joined the European Community in 1986, benefiting from pre-accession funds and later, structural funds. These funds have been assembled into a special programme for the development of the education system, Programa de desenvolvimento educativo para Portugal (PROPED) in 1990 (Eurydice,2000). The budget financed through the Ministry of Education is mainly dedicated to educational activities, although it supports the salaries of academic staff, which dedicate part of their time to research. The research activities of higher education institutions also receive funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology. These institutions are also financed by their own income from contract work (Eurydice, 2000).

source: [[4]]

Quality assurance

A major review of the accreditation and quality assurance practices of Portuguese higher education is being performed by an international review committee formed through the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, ENQA, following a request made by the Government in November 2005. The review committee provides advice on the current legal framework supporting accreditation and quality assurance methodologies, as ,well as on appropriate structures for implementing a national accreditation and evaluation agency following current best quality assurance and accreditation practices in Europe.

http://www.enqa.eu/files/EPHEreport.pdf The article of the twente University gives an overview how the recommendations of the ENQUa review are translated into the education policies;

Law 38/2007 of 16 August sets out the legal framework for the evaluation of higher education institutions and study programmes.

http://www.utwente.nl/cheps/research/higher_education_monitor/2008%20countryreportportugal.pdf

Quality assurance of higher education in Portugal has been based on the Higher Education Evaluation Act 1994. This act was closely developed in cooperation with the Conference of Rectors of Public Universities (CRUP) and forms the backbone of what is widely termed “the contractual model”. The act resulted in the establishment of CNAVES as a national agency for quality assurance of higher education. The act was highly inspired by the Dutch model and retains many characteristics from this, including, above all, placing responsibility for the quality assurance system with an organisation representing the institutions of higher education. The contractual model, which reflects the large extent of institutional representation through the representative entities and evaluation councils, has created a strong sense of ownership and commitment to the quality assurance processes, which would otherwise have been extremely difficult to achieve. The model was fit for purpose at the time of its establishment, but was from the early days also associated with a number of weaknesses, which are analysed in this review. Ten years of CNAVES’s evaluations have, however, also accumulated a number of positive experiences that should be considered carried over into a new quality assurance system.

Source: [[5]]

Portuguese HEIs in the information society

Towards the information society

In the education and training domains the governmental efforts related to the Information Society are mostly focused, on the one hand, on the aspects of providing access conditions to the use of ICTs and, on the other hand, on the providing the population with the basic skills for using ICTs. Moreover, actions targeting teachers and trainers were/are carried out for awareness building about the pedagogical potential of Internet-based contents.

Despite the non existence of a national policy/strategy of eLearning, there is a public entity that carries out relevant work on the development and establishment of rules and standards for eLearning services (including certification of enterprises in the field of training and e-training). The IQF (Institute for Quality in Training) is a public institute with responsibilities on the "strategic support to the training entities and trainers" for which it "develops projects and partnerships that aim to the building of a training system more structured, qualified and adapted to the needs of people and organisations.

http://www.euser-eu.org/ShowCase.asp?CaseTitleID=605&CaseID=1242&MenuID=109

But the eLearning supply market still appears to be at a very early stage of development. Characterised by a fairly large diversity of available solutions and strongly oriented to organisations rather than to the end-user. As for the integration of "user orientation" concerns, it is accurate to say that there is much that can be done for improvement, such depending on the kind of State intervention to (urgently) take place as well as on the progressive maturity of the supply market.

The Information Society in Portugal is not yet developed enough to ensure a wide-spread take-up of eLearning. However, some evidence can be found of a growing dynamic favourable to the development of this method of education and training; The flaws or imperfections of the supply side are still many and the information flow is deficient. Organisations and individual learners which make up the potential demand do not as yet recognise in the existent supply sufficient added value to stimulate take-up of eLearning. The adult population's ICT literacy is precarious which has direct consequences for the prefered solutions for education and training. The access costs for broadband connections are very high and the service quality provided to the end-user is still low. The potential demand for distance learning and eLearning in Portugal is high. On the one hand, the necessities for innovation and modernisation of the initial education systems are evident. In a market of more than 2 million trainees with annual investments (from the Public Sector) of approximately 8.5 million euros in education and training, the gradual implementation of eLearning solutions (namely blended learning) is still a very wide field for action. On the other hand, the increment of the Lifelong Learning training schemes, in formal or non-formal environments, through more versatile solutions for access knowledge and information represent a virtually endless ground for action. The foreseen scenarios for the needed improvement in educational and training skills of the Portuguese population points to annual minimum investments of 1.5-2.5% of the GDP for the next 20 years.

This part s taken from the esults of the eUSER poject:

A "country brief on e-learning in Portugal" of the eUSER project is available at http://euser-eu.org/eUSER_eLearningCountryBrief.asp?CaseID=2251&CaseTitleID=1092&MenuID=117

Virtual Initiatives

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

Universidade Aberta

Universidade Aberta (UAb) is a public distance-teaching university in Portugal.

It embraces as its basic mission to train students whom, for whatever reasons, were not able at the appropriate time, to enter or complete higher education studies. At the same time, Universidade Aberta tries to meet the expectations of all those who, having obtained a university qualification, wish to convert or update it.

UAb has around 9,000 students (in Portugal, in Portuguese speaking African countries and in several other parts of the world), around 200 teachers (more than half with a PhD), around 300 employees, headquarters and other service in Lisboa, delegations in Coimbra and in Porto as well as centres in all district capital cities of Portugal.

Its web site is at http://www.univ-ab.pt/english/

Universidade Aberta has recently undertaken a large-scale modernisation exercise to integrate e-learning into all its operations.

http://nettskolen.nki.no/in_english/megatrends/Aberta_Article.pdf

The following institutions were selected as Innovative eLearning Strategies in Higher Education the frame of the InnoUniLearning project: These institution's descriptions were published in: Source: http://www2.spi.pt/innounilearning/documents/Initial%20Review%20Process%20-%20Highlighted%2025%20eLearning%20Programmes%20_F.pdf

Universidade de Aveiro

The University of Aveiro started its eLearning initiative with an experimental pilot programme in October 1998. The main objectives were to gain experience with web based learning. The target groups were on-campus students. eLearning at the University is aimed towards helping students with learning and encouraging a diversity of pedagogical approaches. In 2004, the University organized the international conference on eLearning ‘eLes04’. The University has several departments that are contributing to ICT enriched education. Each of these departments has a special focus such as: content production and support, teacher training, support on infrastructure and technology, and library services. Besides the university wide services and systems, a number of departments still maintain additional services and systems suitable for their respective environment. To foster internationalization and to gain from the experiences of other HEIs, the University as a whole participates in various projects such as: the Campus Europae, European Consortium of Innovative Universities, and theTuning Educational Structures in Europe. The University has also been identified in 2005 as one of the 11 most advanced universities in terms of implementing the ‘European Credit Transfer System’ (ECTS) for all courses. The University is now extending the use of the ECTS to the life long learning process. Web URL: http://elearning.ua.pt/

Universidade do Minho

The University of Minho established the department TecMinho/, which is aimed towards the training of eTeachers and the creation of an e-learning environment at University. TecMinho/ is the continuous training office of the University offering courses on eLearning pedagogy, technology and communication to the University’s teachers. The University as a whole developed a strategy for eLearning. The work of TecMinho/ is carried out parallel with the work of the University’s service department to support informatics learning (SAPIA). SAPIA is responsible for the technological support to teachers in the use of the LMS. Currently, there are a large number of teachers using a platform named EASY and delivering disciplines through a traditional classroom setting and online solution. All courses at the University are blended courses and are based on learning activities rather than on content. The learning design phase of the courses is the most important one were all the activities, together with the applied pedagogical approach, are first designed by the eTeacher (with the support of TecMinho/). The content to the courses are merely support tools for the learners’ activities..

Web URL: http://www.elearning.tecminho.uminho.pt/

Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Instituto de Ensino e Formação a Distância

The Universidade Católica was highlighted through the survey results. The collected data indicates an overall commitment of the University in the 4 particular areas of institutional activity relevant to eLearning education: Teachers, Learners, Teaching Methodology and Institution. In January 2003, the University Senate approved the establishment of a new Institute for Distance Learning (IEFD). IEFD is directed predominantly to post-graduate level education and to the pedagogical renewal of the University. The new Institute is deemed complementary and subsidiary in nature regarding the other (traditional) education structures: Schools, Institutes, Regional Centers, and Study Centers. IEFD developed a broad dialogue with the different University units to identify opportunities and priorities. The idea was to help units become aware of opportunities and define their own priorities in ODL programmes. Moreover, IEFD provides the necessary technical and pedagogical support to help realize sectoral priorities.

Web URL: http://www.ucp.pt/site/custom/template/ucptplminisite.asp?sspageid=793&lang=1

Universidade do Porto

The University of Porto (UP) is a traditional University created in 1911 and is currently the largest in Portugal. Although eLearning was considered very important for the modernization of UP, the process of introducing eLearning in such a large institution was not easy. By 1999, UP was conscious of the growing importance of the “New Information and Communication Technologies” (ICT) in education and a project for Distance Learning called PEDIST was created to support and promote the use of ICT by teachers and students. From this project it was concluded that the UP schools were in very different stages of development and most of them lacked a structured approach to ICT. There was also a lack of technological infrastructures. In the beginning of 2003, UP started a new project aimed at promoting the use of ICT, and Internet in particular, in the education process. This project intended to increase the number of courses with an on-line component by 30 every year and at the same time evaluate the value of eLearning to an ,institution such as UP. Since UP is a very fragmented university, it was also intended to involve in this process not only faculty members from every school, but also to have the support of the school itself. The second edition of the eLearning project at UP is currently active and following a similar approach to the first project. Apart from this project, two other initiatives had a positive contribution to the development of eLearning at UP. Funding through the National Funding Programme provided the involved schools with extra multimedia material, such as hardware, software and services contributing in a positive way to an increase on the quality of the courseware developed. Also, UP encourages and supports teachers that want to disseminate their work in national and international conferences. To encourage the application of eLearning at a high level of quality, UP created an internal Excellence Award for eLearning to recognize those who positively influence the eLearning programme. These two initiatives were seen to be very important to increase the motivation of the community and reinforce the idea that eLearning is a priority at UP. Web URL: http://elearning.fe.up.pt

University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering

The information of the University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering is Based on Interview in http://virtual.tkk.fi/E4_Action5/E4_A5Survey.pdf page 46

Background Information

Issued from the Academia Politécnica, which was founded in 1837, the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP) is a leading national institution of international reputation whose achievements in research and teaching have established itself in the forefront of the universities of engineering. The Faculty is committed to the highest standards of education, in furtherance of its mission to advance learning and knowledge, preparing professional engineers at an international level. The total staff of FEUP is about 800 workers in teaching, research and administration. The total number of enrolled students is about 5,700,about 10 percent of whom are studying for post-grade degrees. Education is provided by 6 departments in 9 undergraduate, 24 Master degree programmes and Doctoral degrees in 8 areas of engineering.

Virtual Campus initiative

SiFEUP is the strategic project of virtual campus development in FEUP. This award winning system (EUNIS award 2001 - www.eunis.org) started its developementin 1996 and is by now the core system for all campus activities. Being a core system of all the activities in the campus, SiFEUP has several objectives, from providing management information to enhancing internal communication procedures and supporting the educational activities. The system provides information on courses, research, people, equipment and spaces for internal use and also for dissemination and reporting activities. It’s based in the Oracle DBMS, and has a open architecture, that allows the integration with other systems, namely the Library Management System and the E-Learning System in use in the Faculty.

The main aim of e-learning at FEUP is to support teaching and learning of on campusstudents and opening up for off campus students. 6. What support is there for the development of e-learning? GAUTI, the Office for User Support on Information Technologies is responsible for providing support to the teachers for multimedia content development and also manages the e-learning system of the Faculty. The Office has specialized human resources and multimedia equipment and provides its services to selected projects evaluated in a regular basis.

SiFEUP provides several tools for planning and management of educational activities.For example, students and teachers have online access to timetables, classroom information and mailing lists of courses. There is also an online reservation system for presentation equipment and workstation time. All the management level information, including grades is also available online.

SiFEUP development and maintenance is the responsability of the Computing Services Centre. The Director of the Computing Services is also member of the Management Committee of the Office for User Support on Information Technologies, ensuring a strong coordination of activities. There are several specific ICT infrastructure development projects: Wireless LAN, Extranetsupport, Video streaming and Public Information Systems .

The Director of the Library is a member of the Management Committee of the Office for User Support on Information Technologies. The Library Management System is being integrated with SiFEUP and e-learning systems, mainly concerning certification, quality control and metadata issues. The Library is also involved in Electronic Publishing activities.

The SiFEUP provides several tools to support research: project information, curricula,published papers, all with search facilities integrated with the Library Information System.

References

Country Report by OECD: TERTIARY EDUCATION IN PORTUGAL: BACKGROUND REPORT

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/17/39710472.pdf

The InnoUniLearning project

http://www2.spi.pt/innounilearning/documents/Initial%20Review%20Process%20-%20Highlighted%2025%20eLearning%20Programmes%20_F.pdf

Higher Education in Portugal: Cheps

http://www.utwente.nl/cheps/documenten/portugal.pdf

THE PORTUGUESE EDUCATION SYSTEM THE SYSTEM TODAY AND PLANS FOR THE FUTURE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION Bureau for European Affairs and International Relations

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