Education and Training Monitor 2023

1. The teaching profession

The teacher force is ageing, and few young people enter the profession. The National Education Council (CNE 2019) estimates that 20% of current teachers will retire in the next 5 years, and this will rise to 58% within 10 years. In 2021, 32% of Portuguese school teachers (ISCED 1-3) were aged 55 or older (EU: 24.5%)¹. In mainland Portugal in 2021, about half of the school teachers were older than 50 (PT: 49.7 vs EU: 39.4), while only 2% were under 30 years (EU average 7.5%). The Statute of the Teaching Career (Estatuto da Carreira Docente) refers to a reduction of compulsory teaching hours for older teachers. However, their workload remains high since teaching hours are often replaced by coordination tasks and non-regular teaching activities, such as lesson planning and preparation, marking students’ work, being in contact with parents or guardians as well as administrative and reporting tasks.

The shortage of teachers is expected to worsen in the coming years. There are currently shortages in different teaching subjects, and they are particularly severe in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, and the Algarve (Nunes et al., 2021). The same authors estimate the need to recruit on average 3 450 new teachers every year for the next 10 years. The analysis also indicates that some regions and some subject areas and specialisations may have greater recruitment needs. While no shortages are expected in the outermost regions of the Azores and Madeira, recruitment needs range from 27% of the total teaching staff in Alentejo and the North region to 31% in the Centre region. (Nunes, et al., 2021).

The number of teacher graduates is shrinking. The number of higher education graduates in teacher training has declined significantly since 2016 (from around 5 000 in 2014/2015 to 3 500 in 2020/2021). In 2022, the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education authorised higher education institutions to increase the number of teacher training places in courses with a high demand and those corresponding to scarce teaching profiles. This measure seems to have increased the number of students applying for enrolment in basic education (by 14 pps) and in master’s education degrees in 2022/2023.

Although the teaching profession still offers good working conditions in terms of stability, salary and working time, many teachers think that society does not value their work. According to the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (OECD 2019), 91% of teachers do not agree that the teaching profession is valued in society (average of EU participating countries: 82.1%). The freezing of public administration careers between 2005-2007 and 2011-2017 due to the economic crisis may have reduced the attractiveness of the teaching profession. Teachers with permanent contracts (civil servants) worked for more than 9 years without their seniority in the service being counted for career progression and pension rights. In 2019, the Portuguese government tried to remedy this situation with a partial recovery of lost career progression (2 years, 9 months, and 18 days). In the Azores and Madeira, the full recovery of teachers’ service time will happen in phases up until 2024 and 2025 respectively.

Portugal has created more permanent teaching positions, but so far this has had a limited impact. The conversion of more than 6 000 temporary teaching posts to permanent posts in recent years has not yet led to a significant reduction in the ratio of teachers under temporary contracts. In 2020/2021, the proportion ranged from 16.2% in the first years of primary education to 25.3% in secondary education (General-Directorate for education and science statistics (DGEEC), 2022). The average age of teachers with permanent contracts is 50.7; they are almost 10 years older than teachers with non-permanent contracts (41.3 years). In Madeira, all teachers with over 10 years of seniority received permanent positions. The Ministry of Education (MINEDU) is working towards faster recruitment of teachers in permanent positions to increase stability. In addition, salaries for non-permanent teachers will be increased by indexing them based on the number of years of service. In addition, a new model of initial teacher training with longer internships will be created, and administrative burden on teachers will be reduced.

Portuguese teachers earn more than other tertiary graduates, but the average salary hides considerable differences among staff. Portuguese teachers earn on average 32% more than other tertiary-educated workers, the highest share in the EU (OECD,2022). However, this figure hides substantial differences among education staff and is biased as there is a high proportion of senior teachers among teaching staff. In Portugal, the top salary is more than twice the starting salary; however, teachers need on average 34 years of service to reach it. This makes Portugal one of the countries with the biggest differences between teachers' starting and top salaries and, at the same time, one of the countries with the slowest career progression for teachers (OECD, 2022)

Many teachers report work-related stress and exhaustion. Teachers are tired and many are exhausted as shown in empirical studies (Varela et al. 2018; Mota, Lopes & Oliveira, 2021). The TALIS 2018 survey (OECD, 2019) showed that 87% of education professionals were experiencing ‘a lot’ of stress at work, the highest share of the EU participating countries (EU21² 48%). Portuguese teachers in general lower secondary education (seventh to ninth grade) experience more work-related stress than their European peers on average (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2021).

2. Early childhood education and care

Portugal is one of the EU Member States with the highest early childhood education and care (ECEC) participation rate of children aged under 3. Participation in formal childcare of children under the age of 3 in 2022 (47.5%) increased further compared with 2021 (43.3%). It was well above EU average (35.7%) and close to the national revised Barcelona target to be reached by 2030 (50.8%). In 2021, 90.5% of children aged 3 and over attended ECEC; this was 2.4 pps less than in 2020 and below the EU average (92.5%) and the EU-level target (96%).

Portugal is working towards free universal access to ECEC. Pre-school education (Educação Pré-escolar) provided by kindergartens is free of charge for 25 hours a week for children between the ages of 3 and 5 years. In 2022, Ordinance No 198/2022³ set out specific conditions for implementing free childcare and family day care centres for all children born on or after 1 September 2021. The free access will be extended yearly to gradually cover all children aged 2 years and then 3. The scheme aims to cover 100 000 children by 2024 regardless of family income.

Portugal has created new ECEC places, especially in areas where demand is highest. The government is implementing the programme for the extension of the social equipment network (PARES)⁴, which aims, among other investments in social facilities, to create up to 10 000 new ECEC places by 2026. To achieve this ambitious goal, Portugal will either construct new facilities or convert and modernise existing ones. The total investment is more than EUR 72 million, with EUR 54 million funded under the Portuguese recovery and resilience plan (RRP). In June 2023, the government approved an increase in the budget allocated to PARES, enabling the creation of an additional 5 000 places. The Azores also increases its ECEC offer with RRP support. In its RRP, Portugal intends, as part of the Azores regional strategy for combating poverty and social exclusion for 2018-2028⁵, to invest around EUR 35 million to increase the number of places in nurseries, benefiting 1 041 children by 2025.

3. School education

Reading performance is influenced by socio-economic status. The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) shows that, on average, Portuguese fourth graders read as well as their European peers (520 points vs 527 points in EU19) (European Commission, 2023). The proportion of low-achieving pupils in reading literacy is higher than the EU average (25% vs 23% in EU19). Socio-economic status is a strong predictor of reading performance (555 points on average for high socio-economic status children and 488 points for those with a low socio-economic status).

Figure 1: Reading performance difference by socio-economic status, PIRLS 2021

Fewer people leave education without completing upper secondary education.In 2022, the rate of early leavers from education and training (ELET) remained stable compared to 2021 (6.0% vs 5.9%), with a gender gap in favour of women (4 pps) slightly higher than the EU average. However, in the last 10 years, ELET rates dropped in Portugal by 14.5 pps (the highest decrease in all EU countries), particularly for men (19 pps vs 10.1 pps for women). However, women still complete their education more than men (ELET rate of 3.9% for women vs 7.9% for men). Regional disparities in ELET persist and even increased, ranging from over 26.5%⁶in the Azores to less than 5% in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and the North region. ELET rates in rural areas are significantly higher than in cities (7.9% vs 4.9%)⁷, a higher gap than the EU average (3.0 pps vs 1.4 pps).

Figure 2: Early leavers from education and training (18-24 years) by degree of urbanisation and by gender, 2022 (%)

The 21|23 Escola+ plan¹⁰ progresses as planned in remedying learning losses suffered by students during the pandemic. The Plan¹¹ makes curricular development more flexible and provides schools with resources to launch targeted learning activities (European Commission, 2022). The plan provides a global investment of around EUR 1 billion for 2021/2022 and 2022/2023. The fourth monitoring report (DGEEC, 2023), in the two school years of the plan, analyses the level of implementation and relevance of the different actions and suggests areas for improvement.

Portugal continues improving digital skills and the capacity of its education system. Under the digital transition action plan (adopted in 2020)¹², several programmes aim to support the digitalisation of the Portuguese education system. The programme for the digital training of teachers aims at developing and improving the digital skills of teachers and promoting high-quality education and training. A total of 4 241 training workshops have already been held, and some 70 000 teachers have completed the training. Across the country, schools have developed their individual action plans, looking at organisational, technological, digital and pedagogical domains. The digital course books pilot project¹³ has reached 68 school clusters, involving 575 classes and a total of 11 437 students and 2 254 teachers.

Portugal has implemented several programmes to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in education. Portugal has launched a series of measures to promote inclusive classroom practices, such as cooperative learning and differentiated pedagogies. It aims at strengthening collaboration, developing a common language of practice, and engaging with evidence. In addition, the teacher professional development programme for principals and teachers provides online training for about 500 trainers from school clusters’ training centres and for civil servants from MINEDU. In addition, 12 workshops on inclusive education were held, supported by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). Almost 700 general and 26 vocational education and training (VET) schools and 90 school cluster training centres participated in the workshops. In July 2022, the government presented a monitoring framework for equity and inclusion in education. Furthermore, Portugal participates in a multi-country EU’s Technical Support Instrument (TSI) project (with Spain and Italy) aimed at improving their inclusive education systems and practices.

The modernisation of the school infrastructure was relaunched. From 2017 until 2020, 770 schools were renovated by the public business entity, E.P.E. Parque Escolar¹⁴ (renamed to E.P.E. Construção Pública in June 2023) and financed under the 2014-2020 cohesion policy programmes. The municipalities assumed the position of owner of the work, and the Ministry of Education co-financed 50% of the national funding contribution. Up until 2030, another 451 schools have been prioritised for rehabilitation (the majority in the Lisbon, North and Centre regions) and will be financed by the 2021-2027 cohesion policy programmes with around EUR 45 million. The RRP will also finance the renovation 75 public secondary schools’ physical spaces.

4. Vocational education and training

Portugal has carried out significant steps to modernise its VET system with support from EU funds. Reforms and significant investments have taken place in the Portuguese VET system supported by the RRP and the new ESF+ programmes. They should help address structural skills deficits, while significantly improving and increasing the supply of VET to meet labour market needs. Up to 2025, the national RRP will help modernise 365 specialised technological centres in four technological domains: computer science, digital and multimedia, renewable energies, and industry. Portugal is also updating the National Catalogue of Qualifications (NCQ) to respond more flexibly to specific skills needs and new job requirements and anticipate the main qualification and skills needs in existing and emerging economic activities. A set of training paths consisting of short-term training modules in emerging and highly demanded areas have been designed and integrated into the NCQ. These last up to 350 hours and are targeted at young people and adults.

The ESF+ continues to maintain high levels of participation in VET programmes. Almost 40% of students in medium level education (ISCED 3-4) were enrolled in VET programmes¹⁵. ESF+ support will complement the RRP reforms and investments mentioned above. They are all included in an overall strategy, stemming from a national implementation plan that resulted from the 2021 agreement on vocational training and qualifications. The recently adopted demography, qualifications and inclusion ESF+ thematic programme (2021-2027) will continue to support VET with investments of around EUR 1.4 billion reaching a total of 366 000 participants by 2029. The employability of VET graduates in Portugal is better than in the EU as a whole: in 2022, 83.0% of recent VET graduates (aged 20-34) were employed (compared to the EU average of 79.7%)¹⁶ (European Commission, 2022).

5. Higher education

The number of tertiary education graduates decreased in 2022¹⁷.In 2022, the number of the tertiary education attainment rate (TEA) for people aged 25-34 was 44.4% and remains higher than EU average (42%) and close to the EU-level target (45%). TEA rates increased by 15 pps in the last 10 years, particularly due to more women completing higher education, which widened the gender gap (from 10.7 pps to 15.4 pps in favour of women). There are still significant regional differences in TEA rates (from 25.6%¹⁸ in Azores to 48.5% in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area). There are also differences by country of birth (from 40.7%¹⁹ of foreign-born people to 44.9% of native-born people) and place of residence (48.9% ²⁰ in cities, 35.8% in rural areas).

Nevertheless, more young people are enrolled in higher education studies. In 2021/2022 there were 433 217 students enrolled in Higher Education Institutions, which corresponds to a new maximum reached for this variable (following the maximum of 411 995 students enrolled in HEI in 2020/2021). To encourage more socio-economically disadvantaged students to participate in higher education, the government offers a generous scholarship policy. In 2021/2022, more than 79 000 students were awarded a scholarship (approximately one out of five students). In addition to scholarships, in 2022/2023, the government approved additional support for housing costs of higher education students from low-income households, who were neither studying in their place of origin nor receiving a scholarship. For 2023/2024, the upper limits of this support measure were further increased to keep pace with the rising living costs.

A programme to promote success and reduce dropouts in higher education has been launched. In 2021/2022, after their first year of tertiary studies, 10,9% of students were no longer enrolled in the national higher education²¹. The rate is higher in polytechnic higher institutions than in general universities and seems to affect higher technical courses of professional specialisation (CTeSP) and master’s degrees, particularly in fields other than science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Sa et al., 2021). To support the academic integration of first-time students in their first year of studies, the government launched in 2022 a new programme aimed at adopting innovative teaching and learning practices and strengthening self-learning and teamwork. The ESF+ finances projects in this programme in the less-developed regions²². For the regions not covered under this funding scheme (the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, the Algarve and the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira), the government also launched in 2023 a call for proposals²³.

Demographic changes might affect the sustainability of the Portuguese higher education network. Portugal has a wide network of public universities (14) and polytechnic institutes (15) and several non-integrated schools, which ensures a good coverage of the country. However, there has been a continued trend of low birth rates. As a result, between 2020 and 2035, the number of young people in higher education (aged 18-29) is expected to decrease sharply by an average of 25%: 30% in Madeira and around 15% in mainland Portugal (Tribunal de Contas, 2021). Only Lisbon and the Algarve might see a slight increase in the number of students.

A reform of the Portuguese higher education system is under way. The Portuguese government has appointed an independent commission to evaluate the legal regime of higher education²⁴. The autonomy and governance of higher education institutions are regulated by Law No 62/2007. The reform was preceded, during mid-2023 mainly, by a broad public consultation that included several conferences, workshops, and debates. The conclusions of the evaluation committee should be presented to the government in December 2023. According to the 2023 academic autonomy scoreboard²⁵, Portugal ranks medium-high in organisational (80%), financial (70%), and staffing (62%) autonomies. In academic autonomy (54%), Portugal is regarded as a medium-low country. In addition to the evaluation of the legal regime, MINEDU presented in October 2022 a proposal to the trade unions to negotiate the revision of the law by 2024, and the statutes of the teaching and scientific research careers in 2023 and 2024.

A wide and varied offer of micro-credentials is available in Portugal. To mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic²⁶, higher education institutions were recommended to prioritise the diversification and specialisation of the teaching-learning process through short and modular training such as micro-credentials. Micro-credentials are offered in different areas of qualification with a flexible organisation. Different learning approaches are available: face-to-face, online or in a hybrid format. Micro-credentials are also provided in topics related to the environment, sustainability, biodiversity and ecosystems and digital transformation. In 2021 the government awarded funding (in the frame of the national RRP) to consortia of higher education institutions and public and private employers to develop micro-credentials as part of their short-term training offer (up to 12 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) credits)²⁷. At least nine Portuguese public universities, nine polytechnics institutions, and four private universities offer this training.

The availability of affordable student accommodation is improving. According to the Observatory of Student Accommodation²⁸, in September 2023 there were available 3290 private rooms throughout the country, with an average price of EUR 337 per room²⁹. In 2023/2024, the scholarship supplements range from EUR 84 (tuition in a public student residence) to EUR 456 (a monthly supplement to support the costs of accommodation outside a residence). The accommodation supplement outside public residence is higher in areas where real-estate pressure is felt the most, namely Lisbon Cascais, Oeiras and Porto. To increase available accommodation, the government adopted in 2019 the national plan for housing in higher education (PNAES)³⁰. This allocates EUR 375 million and an additional EUR 72 million for the construction, acquisition, adaptation, and renovation of residences for higher education students. From 2021 to 2026, a 78% increase in capacity is expected. The installed capacity for students’ accommodation will increase by 18 143 beds (11 699 new beds and 6 444 renovated existing beds. The public network of students’ accommodations will integrate 26 772 beds available at subsidized prices. Following the first call for applications in 2022³¹, 131 applications were selected and being executed.

6. Adult learning

Portugal is progressing in setting out and developing adult learning policies, but a gap in qualifications of the adult population remains. The education level of the adult population, although improving, is still relatively low. In 2022, the share of the population (18-64 years) with up to upper secondary educational attainment stood at 33.1% (EU: 47.1%), similar than in 2021 (32.8%) and 9 pps more than in 2013 (24.1%)³². The participation rate in education and training in 2022 was better than the EU average (13.8% vs 11.9%) and was higher for women (14.2 vs 13.2 in men)³³. As in other EU countries, low-qualified adults (aged 25-64) participate less in education and training than other groups (5.4% of adults with less than upper secondary education vs 24% of adults with tertiary educational attainment).

Portugal’s main instrument to promote adult learning is still the Qualifica programme. It is implemented under the responsibility of the National Agency for Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training (ANQEP), a public agency jointly supervised by MINEDU and the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, in coordination with the Ministry of Economy and Maritime Affairs. As of December 2022, some 870 000 adults were enrolled in the Qualifica programme, of which 75% were referred/guided to training. Moreover, 55% of those enrolled were adults with less than upper secondary education. More than 1 million certifications were awarded, but only a small amount (around 11%) are full certifications (i.e., improved the level of qualification of the adult). The Qualifica is supported by ESF+ for 2021-2027 with an allocated budget of around EUR 184 million. The RRP is also supporting adult learning with measures such as the Qualifica Accelerator and local projects promoting basic level qualifications (European Commission, 2022).