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 education system may be defined as the means and resources whereby the right to education is effectively enjoyed. It consists of a number of organised structures and activities, promoted and administered by a variety of institutions and other bodies (public and private organisations and co-operatives).

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

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 university1. 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).[2] 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

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

Information society strategy period

For more information see: Major e-learning initiatives in Portugal.

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

References

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