Registration for the national exams for access to higher education for secondary school students begins today and ends on March 8, with registration taking place on an electronic platform.
“Students in 11th grade and 12th grade who wish to take national final exams exclusively as entrance exams for access to higher education” must register between February 26 and March 8, according to normative order no. 4/2024.
The diploma lists registration dates for all kinds of situations, from students who have decided to cancel a subject, to those who want to improve their grade or who want to take an exam in a subject they have never attended.
Families register for the tests on the Electronic Registration Platform for Tests and Exams (PIEPE), which is available at https://jnepiepe.dge.mec.pt, and the school administration services then validate them.
The diploma also defines the rules for the other external tests: In the case of pupils in the 2nd, 5th and 8th grades, who will be taking benchmarking tests, there is no need to register, unless they attend individual or home schooling.
Registration is also automatic for almost all students taking the equivalence tests for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles, final exams and tests at school level for the 3rd cycle of basic education.
Exceptions again include pupils in individual education or home education and those who are out of compulsory education and do not attend any school. In these cases, they also have two weeks to register (between today and March 8).
The order on the conditions of admission to external assessment tests and tests of equivalence to attendance in basic and secondary education for the current school year also states that students who are now in the 12th grade will only take exams in the subjects that they “elect as entrance exams for higher education”.
The order also states that the basic education assessment tests and final exams will be held electronically, as was the case last year, while the secondary education national final exams will be held on paper.
The Ministry of Education has carried out a project for the gradual transition from eternal tests to digital mode, which began in the 2021/2022 school year with the benchmarking tests and should end in the next school year, with the generalization of the electronic process for all external assessment: benchmarking tests, final cycle tests and national exams.