The educational success of Portugal, told by one of its protagonists

Nuno Crato, economist and mathematician, was Portugal’s Minister of Education and Science from 2011 to 2015. Some point to him as one of the people most responsible for improving education in the country, although he prefers to say that “it was a task for many people, mainly teachers for a long time”. Before, during and after his mandate, he has defended with arguments and concrete data that the key to success was to bet on demand, clarity in study plans and transparency in results, and to do this continuously.

The recent history of Portuguese education has become an exemplary account of how, despite an economic crisis hitting the country’s economy hard, results have steadily and significantly improved. And not only in some international tests, as is sometimes said, not just for the best students. As the average PISA score rose, the percentage of those falling below the minimum level in reading or mathematics dropped, dropout rates declined, and higher education classrooms became crowded.

The change, according to Crato, began at the beginning of the century. The main guidelines (rigorous assessment, clear and demanding curricula, commitment to fundamental skills) were maintained later, with governments of different political persuasions. Crato himself was an independent minister, not affiliated with any party. During his tenure, he took those guidelines further, with some bold moves. Since 2016, regrets the former minister, this path has been abandoned, and this can already be seen in the results.

Low standards hurt the worst students

The improvement in Portuguese education from 2000 to 2015 is undeniable. It is one of the few OECD countries that has increased its scores on all PISA editions in reading and mathematics. However, in the last edition of the survey, in 2018, the average grade and the percentage of failures deteriorated slightly. Why is this happening?

Nuno Crato: We have to look at the data carefully. From 2003 to 2015, the educational policies of different governments were focused on demand and clarity of study plans. This brought very positive results. In the most well-known international exams (PISA, TIMSS), Portugal moved from the bottom of the OECD to the average, even above it in reading. In addition, not only did overall grades improve, but at the same time, the percentage of underperformers (failures) decreased. This is very important: being below the approved means not having acquired a minimum competence. In reading, specifically, it indicates that the student is not able to understand simple sentences, therefore the whole learning process is very limited.

As of 2015, the emphasis of educational policies is no longer the requirement, but the inclusion, but a misunderstood inclusion. The message conveyed to students is that everyone has a right to success. This, in a sense, is true, but at the same time it can be misleading. Students are deceived when they are offered artificial, unrequited success. Since 2015, it began to be said that demanding everyone equally was using economic criteria for education and would produce discrimination. So, since then, less attention has been paid to the results, and they have gotten worse.

In addition, the deterioration has been noted mainly among the worst students. An example is the percentage of failures in the TIMMS (mathematics test for 4th grade students organized by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement): 20% in 2011, 18% in 2015, 26% in 2019. For me, this is not surprising. I always said that the requirement not only helped the general results, but, mainly, the neediest students.

fight for transparency

The publication of the first PISA results (year 2000) and TIMSS (1995) provoked a great social and political controversy in Portugal. What exactly happened?

Nuno Crato: In the first edition of TIMSS, Portugal appeared as the third worst country among those that participated. Instead of facing the problem, the government’s reaction was to announce that the country would no longer participate in this test, and, in fact, it did until 2011. With the PISA data, there was also resistance. In the first installment, in 2000, Portugal was clearly below average in all subjects examined. However, the government has refused to release each school’s scores, claiming that doing so would be discriminatory. There was a legal battle and, finally, the threat of a court forced the executive to publish the results.

What was seen then was very interesting. There were schools with socioeconomically vulnerable students who, however, achieved better results than others with students in better social conditions. We all know that, in general, there is a strong correlation between the profile of families and the results. Statistically it is. But you can contradict that statistic. When the PISA results were published, the eyes of parents, teachers and education authorities turned to schools in particular: what are we doing? How can we improve? I think it was a very important period.

Boost morale despite the economic downturn; meritocracy

The reforms initiated at the beginning of the century suffered a severe test during the years of economic crisis, which were especially hard in Portugal. How to maintain demand when resources are scarce?

Nuno Crato: It is often thought that funding is a great tool to improve an educational system, but this is not the case. For example, the evaluation and design of study plans are more important. Of course, cash is welcome. But sometimes it becomes a kind of bribe to cover up the system’s shortcomings. Instead, other non-monetary incentives can be very effective, as was found at the time.

In fact, the crisis hit Portugal very hard. The country was bankrupt. Teachers saw their salaries reduced. However, in this situation, the message was: “We are in difficult times, but we will still improve results. We will do more with less. Let’s focus on the essentials.” The response from the teachers was very good. The vast majority understood this message. They were the true agents of educational improvement in Portugal.

Moral incentives were created: recognition and awards for the best schools. We also launched the “teacher credit hours” program, through which the neediest schools received portions of the workload of some teachers who previously did not work full time. It was a way to take advantage of the resources we already had and that were being wasted. Money cannot be wasted, because it comes from taxpayers’ taxes.

For the same reason, I think incentives should be linked to improved results. It’s not the same thing to say “I’ll give you a million euros to improve” than to say “I’ll give you a million euros if you improve”. In this sense, the publication of the results of schools in national and international tests should also be a stimulus. Without external evaluation, the authority of teachers can be eroded. When we carried out the exams, some teachers were grateful because they thought they were a help to be able to demand from their students. Instead, now that these tests are gone, that incentive is gone and classrooms have become less disciplined.

Focus on the essentials, don’t be fooled by the playful

You mentioned that one of the strengths during the reform period was focusing on the essentials, something especially urgent in times of low budget. How did this bet come true?

Nuno Crato: In the international educational debate, not only in our country, there is a pedagogical current that, by default, gives more value to more innovative and playful proposals, or at least those that present themselves as such: ‘let’s buy computers for everyone, or let’s implement new methodologies’. And this can be interesting, but it is not essential, especially in a time of economic crisis. The essentials are reading comprehension, math, and then science, history, art. It seems sexier to say that children have to learn while having fun, but what worries me is that they learn in depth what is necessary, and that everyone learns. To amuse children, teachers are not needed.

During the era of demand-driven reforms, clear, rigorous, and evaluable plans for improving reading and numeracy literacy were passed. For mathematics, specifically, the Portuguese Mathematical Society was used. In the same way, for planning the curriculum of other disciplines, specialists were consulted. It should be normal, but the truth is, you rarely have them. On the other hand, a concrete measure was to grant more hours for fundamental disciplines.

More years of schooling and more itineraries, not all for college

Another of the most important measures taken during his years as minister was the extension of compulsory schooling up to the age of 18 and, at the same time, the promotion of Professional Training itineraries. What was intended with these decisions?

Nuno Crato: I think the school has a duty not only to provide students with a basic education, but also to prepare them to be successful in the immediate future, whether at university or at work. That’s why we wanted to extend the compulsory internship from the 9th to the 12th grade, that is, from 15 to 18 years old, approximately. This raised an interesting debate, because we knew that before it was extended from 6th to 9th grade, from 12 to 15 grades, and there was a drop in average results, and we didn’t want that to happen again.

Not all students want or should go to college. Therefore, it is important to offer interesting technical scripts. We created two distinct paths: one designed for low-achieving students who need more practical teaching to advance in their studies, and who, without it, would probably fail, and another directly oriented towards the more highly demanding professional world, for those who, having good grades, will opt for the technical route. This is what is done in educational systems where Vocational Training works best, as is the case in Austria, Switzerland or Germany, but with the difference that we wanted all itineraries to communicate. In Germany, for example, the decision for one or the other is taken very early and then it is not easy to go back. We didn’t want that. However, there is a catch. Our Mediterranean societies still underestimate manual professions, something that does not happen in these other countries.

During his tenure at the Ministry, he also deepened the autonomy of schools, an always controversial topic. What should schools have autonomy over and what not?

Nuno Crato: In fact, we decided to entrust the processes to the schools, but at the same time, to be demanding in terms of results. I think this is the right way. In the case of Portugal, giving more autonomy was not easy, because it is a very centralized system. I usually say that, a few days after I was appointed, a director general came to me and asked me to study a request to increase lunch time by 15 minutes. I thought: why do I have to decide this? Consult the families and teachers of that school. If you deem it appropriate, go ahead. Unfortunately, the autonomy of Portuguese schools is still very low.

This interview is a summary of the conversation for the podcast Education, in debate .

©️ 2023 Acepressa. Published with permission. Original in Spanish.