The Education System in Portugal

The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher education are the 2 regulating bodies in charge of Portugal’s education system. The former is responsible for pre-higher educations such as basic and secondary while the latter covers university and polytechnic subsystems. Portuguese is the primary language used in all schools at all levels. In 2006, the national government of Portugal allotted about €6 billion to education. By the end of 2003, Portugal’s literacy rate is 92.5%.

Basic Education consists of 3 levels: 1º Ciclo (4 years); 2º Ciclo (2 years) and 3º Ciclo (3 years). After the completion of all 3 stages, a Diploma/Cetificate is given to every graduate. The Secondary Education can be finished in 3 years with the following categories: public, private, and cooperative. There are 2 kinds of courses, general and technical/vocational. General courses usually comprise of science and technology, social science, socio-economic science, language, literature and visual arts. While Technological or Vocational courses normally include administration, civil construction, electronics, computing, multimedia, marketing, and sport.

The Higher Educations comprises of 2 primary subsystems: university and polytechnic education. The university structure is more theoretical and extremely research-oriented while the non-university or polytechnic systems are more profession-oriented and provide more practical teaching. Degree in the fields of economics, law, medicine, natural sciences, psychology, and veterinary are mostly university. The polytechnic commonly offers accounting technician, health care, nursing and preschool education. Degrees for agriculture, education, engineering, humanities, management, and sports are generally offered in both systems. The University of Coimbra is the oldest university in Portugal which was established in 1290 and the biggest in terms of number of enrollees is the University of Porto with an average of 28,000 students annually. There are a number of foreign international schools in Portugal with excellent reputation particularly in the cities of Lisbon, Porto, and Algarve.