“Those numbers do not measure the problem. They are the figures that the services had and which have been used for years by the Ministry, but what has been proven is that they are not, in fact, accurate,” said Fernando Alexandre.
Speaking to journalists at the Assembly of the Republic, where he met with parliamentary parties, the Minister of Education was questioned about the external audit that concluded the existing system does not allow for a precise count of students without classes due to a lack of teachers. He admitted that the country, like the executive, was unaware of its own ignorance on this issue.
“Now we know that we didn’t know, but we are going to learn,” he emphasized, reaffirming the Ministry’s intent to create an information system that accurately measures the impact of the teacher shortage issue.
The audit, conducted by KPMG, was commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) following controversy over data on students without classes released last year.
The findings, released on Monday, highlight the existence of “gaps and deficiencies that undermine the reliability of data reported by the Directorate-General of Schools (DGEstE) regarding the number of students without classes in a subject, as well as the ability to verify these figures for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years.”
In response to the shortcomings, the auditor recommends the implementation of a system that would “allow for the timely and centralized collection of information directly from schools,” for instance, “by gathering and compiling electronic class summaries.”
According to MECI, this new solution will be enacted from the next academic year to “monitor this phenomenon with accuracy, credibility, and transparency at different times and throughout the school year.”
The new model will also be used to design policies to combat the issue, “ensuring equity in access to quality education, better learning outcomes, and a higher probability of success throughout the school journey.”
