Education In Portugal

Portugal is the western Country of the European Union and it confines with the Spain on the east and north sides and with the North Atlantic Ocean on the south and west sides; the countryside is wide varying. In the north the region is mountainous, the climate is rainy and it is characterised by vineyards and small farms. Central Portugal, which includes the capital city Lisbon, is vary, passing from very industrialised areas to rural ones. Near the coast the land is characterised by pine forests and sand dunes and large part of the inhabitants of this area earning a living from fishing. Finally, in the region known as the Beira (south), farming predominates with some light industry and mining.
A great part of Portuguese industry and commerce

Education can be provided both by public and private; for the private one, with a specific certification released by the relative Ministry.
The structure of schooling in Portugal can be presented in the following way:
• Pre-school education: this is the first stage of basic education that involves children between ages of three and five; anyway this level of education is not compulsory;
• Compulsory Schooling-Basic education: lasting 9 years; it covers the ages of six to fifteen and it is composed by three cycles lasting four, two and three years, respectively; 

• Secondary education: it is a cycle of specific studies and includes various courses intended principally to prepare young people to go on to higher education or to enter the labour market (it spans three years).
• Higher education: this level involves the academic or professional programmes and it is composed by a binary system (universities and polytechnics); doctorate programs are allowed only in

We are now considering the upper secondary and, partially, higher level of education and so the training period is composed by two period of training: teachers have to attain at least a “Licenciado degree” (the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree) and than, they have to follow specific courses that last for between four and six years (according to the Education Act). Teachers in Portugal are also compensated with higher salaries respect to the European Average.
Despite this strong training and incentives programs for teachers, as it is showed in the Figure 1 in the previous page, Portugal is very far from reaching the European targets and also from the average results of the other European countries. This underline the fact that problems linked with students’ performances must be researched in other fields different from the teaching