The National Education Council’s (CNE) State of Education Report 2024 reveals that in the 2023/2024 academic year, 174,126 students of foreign nationality were enrolled in compulsory schooling, an increase of 31,366 compared to the previous year (22%).
The majority of these students are Brazilian, but among the 55,827 foreign students whose native language is not Portuguese enrolled in primary education, only 10,638 were registered in Portuguese as a Non-Native Language (PLNM) courses (19.1%), and of the 14,239 in secondary education, only 1,963 took the course (13.8%).
The report’s authors suggest these figures “seem to indicate that the provision fell short of what was necessary.”
The document emphasizes the importance of “adjusting the response to foreign students who are not proficient in Portuguese, reviewing the availability of Portuguese as a Non-Native Language (PLNM) in scope and content, to address the migratory flows that have transformed the national educational system’s nationality composition.”
Among foreign students in basic education whose mother tongue is not Portuguese, Ukrainians (1,416 students, 11.3%) and Indians (1,154 students, 9.2%) are notable, being the only nationalities with more than 1,000 students in PLNM.
In secondary education, these two nationalities continue to predominate: Ukrainians with 240 students (10.5%) and Indians with 197 students (8.6%).
The largest group of PLNM students, both in primary and secondary education, comprises students of Portuguese nationality, “most likely a sign of migratory flows that have brought to Portugal young people whose children are already national citizens” but who do not have Portuguese as their mother tongue or who studied in another educational system previously.
The CNE also highlights the rise in children, young people, and adults attending the education system in 2023/2024, totaling 2,068,790, an increase of 12,462 compared to the previous year, with 79.2% attending public institutions, as in previous years.
The actual preschool enrollment rate, concerning children from age 3 up to compulsory schooling age, reached 94.5%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points, “slowly” approaching the 96% target set by the European Union to be met by 2030.
“The expansion of availability may not be sufficient to meet the number of children old enough to attend preschool education,” it warns.
In the 1st cycle of basic education, the actual enrollment rate is 100% since 2021/2022, while in the remaining cycles, although it has been increasing, it still stands at 94.2% in the 2nd cycle and 94.7% in the 3rd cycle.
In secondary education, 10% of school-aged youth are not enrolled in existing courses.
“Knowing that a secondary education diploma means greater employability and better life prospects, it is important to understand the reasons for this situation and to define strategies to overcome them,” argues the CNE.
The report also points to the disparity between students choosing secondary-level scientific-humanistic courses (61%) and those opting for dual certification courses (39%).
“This disparity, which does not seem beneficial for either the youth or the country, is certainly due to a complex diversity of reasons and demonstrates that much remains to be done to reverse the existing trend,” it highlights.
The report concludes that “Portugal has been consolidating a set of measures aimed at improving access to and retention within the education system at all levels of education, mitigating some of the effects of socioeconomic inequalities.”
“Despite the efforts to make the system more equitable being evident in the data, they also highlight the need for continued investment to overcome enduring challenges,” it advocates.
