A real shock! When the results of the first Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) were released in 2000, Portugal was astonished to discover that it was at the bottom of the table in reading, science and mathematics. This major international survey, designed to measure the performance of 15-year-old students in over 80 countries every three years, led to a real awakening. A vast action plan was put in place. Fifteen years later, Portuguese students managed to reach the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in mathematics and even significantly exceed it in reading and science. The dropout rate, those students who leave school, was 39.3% in 2012, then fell to 13.6%. The country, focused on combating inequalities, has above all taken up the challenge of helping everyone progress, both struggling students and the best performers. “Portugal is the largest success story “Europe’s Pisa strategy,” summed up Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, in 2017.
Even though its results have tended to stagnate since 2018, Portugal is still often cited as an example. In France, in particular, many education specialists and economists are scrutinizing the methods implemented by our Iberian neighbors: overhaul of school programs, introduction of ambitious national assessments, reform of teacher training, autonomy of institutions, etc. So many good recipes that seem to have proven their worth. “We now know that there is no inevitability in education and that getting back on track is entirely possible,” says Eric Charbonnier, an analyst at the OECD. Portugal’s great strength? Having succeeded in setting clear objectives and building a long-term plan. “During this period, no fewer than seven Ministers of Education, from three different political parties, have succeeded one another. Even if the debates were sometimes heated, we managed to move forward in the same direction without losing sight of the course that had been set,” confides Nuno Crato, professor of mathematics and Minister of Education between 2011 and 2015.
Portugal had a long way to go, since in the early 1970s, 18% of the Portuguese population was illiterate and less than 5% of young people completed their secondary education. Little by little, the country would get back on track, notably by increasing the length of instruction from eight to twelve years, but this massification of education did not go hand in hand with an improvement in performance. Until the turn of the millennium, when the emphasis was placed on the programs: their content was rethought and became more ambitious, more progressive and more precise about the goals to be achieved. “Teachers knew that they had to emphasize the fluente [NDLR : fluidité dans le jargon éducatif] in reading. But the speed targets varied from one teacher to another. We remedied this by giving clear instructions,” says Nuno Crato. The focus was mainly on fundamental subjects such as mathematics and Portuguese. “If the number of hours devoted to these subjects increased, it was not necessarily this factor that made the difference but rather the improvement in the quality of teaching,” says Eric Charbonnier.
“Culture of evaluation”
In France, the Senate Finance Committee, as part of a report on the working conditions of teachers in Europe submitted in June 2022, also praised an “interesting system” set up by Portugal: the creation of “school cities” bringing together establishments of different levels, from nursery to secondary, under centralized management. This is enough to encourage the transition between different classes, the collaboration of teachers or the pursuit of options throughout schooling. This reform was accompanied by a territorial reorganization. “The State closed isolated schools whose building condition or success rates were lower than the national averages. The students concerned were transferred to larger schools, often newly built”, explains the rapporteur Gérard Longuet, former LR senator. This also made it possible to limit structural costs by pooling certain human and material resources. Proof that the results are not always correlated with the budget allocated to education: in 2002, expenditure represented 5.1% of GDP compared to 3.9% in 2012, in the midst of the economic crisis.
The key to success lies above all in the implementation of tests, as numerous as they are demanding, at different levels of students’ education. A real upheaval for Portugal, which paradoxically has long been impervious to international comparisons. In 1995, a few years before the shock of the first edition of Pisa, the country already obtained very mediocre results in the Timss survey which probes the skills of students in the 4th and 8th grades (equivalent to CM1 and 4th grade for France). Even if officially, Portuguese political decision-makers question the methodology of the survey, an awareness then begins to emerge. Over the years, a real “culture of assessment” ends up being established. “The fear of some was that these reforms would lead to an increase in the number of repeaters. This has not been the case, quite the contrary since this statistic is decreasing”, Nuno Crato rejoices. And the scientist insists on the importance of focusing on the “progress” of students rather than focusing solely on their level.
Improving the results of the weakest while still helping the best to progress: Portugal has succeeded, during this decade, in combating educational and social inequalities thanks to a battery of measures. Such as setting up support groups after school, financial aid for students from low-income families, facilitating access to the Internet and computers, introducing training modules to help teachers better identify the difficulties encountered by certain children, etc. It should be noted that, unlike France, Portugal values teachers’ commitment to continuing education in terms of salary. The rate of remuneration of teachers is also among the highest in Europe. And, unlike France, those who work in lower grades earn more than their counterparts in higher education. “Which does not mean that they are satisfied with it. And as in many countries, many believe that their job is becoming increasingly difficult to do,” Eric Charbonnier puts into perspective.
Greater autonomy for establishments
Beyond students, Portuguese schools are also regularly evaluated. In 2019, France was one of the last European countries to set up a School Evaluation Council based on the same model. It is also looking closely at one of the other main factors in the success of the Portuguese system: greater autonomy of schools. There, school heads, responsible for building a specific educational project, are not appointed but elected by a general assembly made up of representatives of teachers, parents, students and local stakeholders. An organizational method that is going in the right direction according to Philippe Aghion, professor at the Collège de France, Insead and the London School of Economics. “In France, we always come up against a certain reluctance, probably because we tend to associate school autonomy with privatization,” explains the economist. “It is true that it is important to ensure that we do not create bad competition between establishments, and do not favour the most informed families over others at the risk of increasing inequalities,” he explains.
The relative stagnation, or even decline, in the performance of Portuguese students in reading, mathematics and science in the Pisa ranking since 2018, however, has cast a somewhat dark shadow over the picture. “After 2016, we gave up on certain major principles by reducing the number of assessment tests, lowering the level of requirements and giving up on the monitoring of the results obtained by schools”, regrets Nuno Crato, for whom it would have been better to stay the course set. The former minister has just joined the Scientific Council of French National Education. This time, a very French specificity, from which other countries could well draw inspiration according to Nuno Crato, who insists: “Education can only improve by abandoning dogmatism, ideology and by respecting evidence, experience and modern science.”
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