“Hoping that the newly approved merger enhances Vocational Education from a perspective of global qualification, that is, without emptying the legacy and reach of the existing agency in what it involved in a wide vision of qualification, the President of the Republic enacted the decree that abolishes, by merger, the National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Education, I.P.,” reads a note published on the Presidency of the Republic’s website.
The abolition of the agency, which coordinated the execution of education and vocational training policies for young people and adults, is the result of the reform of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation (MECI) announced at the end of July.
With 18 entities and 27 senior directors among the services of the non-higher education system and higher education, science, and innovation, the MECI will now include only seven entities and 27 senior directors, with the integration of the abolished entities into new ones.
In the case of ANQEP, its functions will be partially integrated into the new Institute of Education, Quality and Evaluation.
Today, the decree-law that enacts the abolition of the General Secretariat for Education and Science (SGEC), whose functions will be distributed among various entities, including the new Institute for Higher Education, Institute of Education, Quality and Evaluation, and the new Agency for the Management of the Educational System and Directorate-General for Studies, Planning, and Evaluation, was also published in the Diário da República.
The General Secretariat of the Government, the Entity of Shared Services of Public Administration, the State Legal Department, the Directorate-General for Books, Archives, and Libraries, and ESTAMO – Real Estate Holdings will also assume some of the functions currently performed by the SGEC.
The decree, which takes effect from October 1, also establishes the criteria for staff selection within the scope of reallocating SGEC workers to the various entities that will assume its functions.
On Monday, the MECI announced the appointment of the current Secretary-General of Education and Science, Raúl Capaz Coelho, to head the Agency for the Management of the Educational System.
