Welcome message
The new European dimension has created innovative corridors of communication which have led to an
increasing co-operation mobility within the EU.
The Polytechnic Institute of Leiria has been involved with Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) - old
Socrates, namely with Erasmus, since the very early times.
In 2007/2008 academic year, the Socrates/Erasmus program reached an end and was replaced by the new
LLP - Lifelong Learning Program. LLP's first stage is scheduled for 2007/2013.
LLP include, among others the Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Gruntvig and Jean Monet
programs.
LLP/Erasmus include curricular internships, as well as study program while the Leonardo da Vinci Program
keeps only professional placements.
In the first few years working within the Pilot Project in Business Administration, but throughout the years the
study field was extended to other areas: Maritime Biology, Communication, Design, Education, Engineering,
Fine Arts, Management, Nursing, Legal Counselling, Tourism and Translation
Mainly we have been working with students mobility and have some intensive programmes with our
partners. Furthermore, and within the LLP framework, we’ve been working with Lingua, Arion, Comenius,
and Leonardo da Vinci.
We are pleased to welcome you to our website and we will help you in making your stay here as enjoyable
and academically rewarding as possible. To facilitate the process of setting in and adapting to our country,
you will find in this site a general description of our Institute, some pratical advice, academic information,
accommodation, EILC courses, student support services.
We hope this information will be helpful to you. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch
with our Mobility and International Cooperation Office through the e-mail: acecilia@ipleiria.pt, or by
telephone; ++244 860448.
Getting to know Portugal
Portuguese people are known for their sympathy and courtesy with foreigners.
In Portugal there is a very low criminality rate, however there are a few places like bus stations or public
transports where you should be aware of pickpockets.
The Portuguese like going out at night and never say no to a night of solid partying. There are many pubs,
discos and bars open till late (discos are often opened till 6.00 am, pubs and café bars till 2.00 am). This has
to do with our mediterranean way of life and with our warm nights.
The Portuguese begin to work at 8.00/9.00 am and normally finish between 5.30/7.00 pm. We have lunch
about 1.00 pm and dinner about 8.00 pm.

The Portuguese Educational system

Higher Education in Portugal

Polytechnic Education

Graduate Degrees

Post-Graduate Degrees

Weather

Religion

Portuguese Currency

Credit Cards and ATM Cashpoints

Living Cost

Gastronomy

Call Abroad

Electric Power

Post Office

Weights and Measures

Driving

Taxi

Openning Hours

Drugs
The Portuguese Educational System
The
Portuguese
educational
system
is
structured
in
four
levels:
_ Pre-school - not mandatory and destined for children from the age of 2 to 6;
_ Basic - which is organized in three cycles and constitutes mandatory minimum
education:
_ 1st Cycle- 4 years of schooling;
_ 2nd Cycle - 2 years of schooling;
_ 3rd Cycle - 3 years of schooling;
_ Secondary - 3 years of schooling;
_ Higher
Since the 2005/2006 academic year Technological Specialization Courses were also made available to
students. The courses constitute a type of post-secondary but not higher professional qualifications that
confer a level IV professional qualification and are promoted in collaboration with higher education
institutions.
The Portuguese population possesses very low qualifications in all education levels, even after the
significant increase that was registered in the last decade. In 2001, 11,3% of the population between the
ages of 25-64 did not possess any type of academic qualification, 64,4% had 9 or less years of schooling
(which corresponds to the mandatory education), 13% had secondary education and only 11,4% had higher
education.
Higher Education in Portugal
In Portugal, higher education is organized according to a binary model where two sub-systems exist:
University and Polytechnic. However, it is not a pure system: universities are allowed to offer education of
polytechnic nature.
Higher education institutions can be State-run or private and cooperative. There is also a religious based
institution.
The Portuguese higher education network is presently constituted by:

13 public universities (integrating 52 organic units);

1 religious based university (integrating 16 organic units);

15 State-run polytechnic institutes (that integrate 99 organic units) located in 14 of the 18 districts
that make up mainland Portugal;

6 institutions of military and police education;

48 private or cooperative university institutions;

62 private and cooperative polytechnic institutions;
In the Portuguese higher education system there are numerus clausus, that condition access. The number
of vacancies/places for each institution/degree is fixed annually. Students enter the higher education system
by way of a national access procedure/candidature that is run by the Ministry of Science, Technology and
Higher Education. They are then placed in an institution/degree in accordance to their preferences and
classifications. In the national access procedure, each student may indicate up to six institutions /degrees by
order of preference.
In this manner, after 12 years of schooling (9 years of basic education and 3 years of secondary education),
the condition that makes the candidate eligible for higher education is the combination of classifications
obtained at the secondary level and the grades obtained in the exams undertaken at the end of the 12th
year at national level, in the disciplines that are considered to be essential to the higher degree in which the
students seek to gain entrance ("entry exams"). Each higher education institution/degree can demand that a
student undertakes one or two entry exams and the student is required to obtain at least 95 points out of
200.
Through the classification obtained in these entry exams and the average of the final marks obtained in
secondary education (10th, 11th and 12th year) the students' candidacy mark is calculated. No student can
enter the Portuguese higher education system with a candidacy mark that is inferior to 95 points on a scale
ranging from 0 to 200. That mark should be equal or superior to the legal minimum fixed, individually, by
each higher education institution. In the 2003/2004 academic year the IPL was the first polytechnic
institution to demand a candidacy mark of 100 points on a scale of 0 to 200.
The number of students that seek a place in higher education through the national access procedure has a
tendency to decrease until 2010 (Appendix-8), due to two main factors:

Decrease in demography (a tendency that will continue until 2010);

Early school abandonment (in basic and secondary education).
On the other hand, the unregulated increase in supply, characterized by a multiplicity of institutions and
degrees, particularly in private university education has raised the number of vacancies available. . This
phenomenon will probably alter the access rules in the very near future.
Polytechnic Education
Polytechnic Higher education in its present form in Portugal exists since 1986, when it was consecrated in
Law nº 46/86, 14 October. Its specific legal regime is regulated in Decree-Law n. º 185/81, 1 July,
(Polytechnic Academic Career Statute); by Law nº 54/90, 5 September, (Statute and Autonomy of
Polytechnic Higher Education Institutions); by Law n.º 37/2003, 22 August, (Financing Higher Education
Base Law); by Law n.º 49/2005, 30 August, (second alteration to the Education System Base Law and first
alteration to the Financing Higher Education Base Law); and, by Decree-Law nº 74/2006, 24 March, (which
regulates the alterations made to the Education System Base Law (Law nº 49/2005) relatively to the new
model of higher education organization in what refers to the study cycles).
The organization and attributions of the polytechnic higher education institutions are globally regulated in
Law nº 54/90, 5 September. In conformity, polytechnic institutions are legal persons that dispose of
"statutory, administrative, financial and patrimonial autonomy". They are also organized in schools that are
given "scientific, pedagogical, administrative and financial autonomy".
The law underlines the regional character of the polytechnic institutes and allows them to confer bachelor
degrees. However, the institutions began to feel the need to confer other degrees in order to satisfy further
human resource training needs and to settle those human resources in the regions.
This necessity was also felt in relation to masters and doctoral degrees.
As a result, since 1998, polytechnic institutes can confer licentiate degrees13 (before - since 1986 - they
could only confer them in the domain of education) and since 2005, with the recent alteration to the
Education System Base Law, masters degrees. Unfortunately, the law does not foresee the possibility of
Polytechnic Institutes conferring doctoral degrees (article 14º of Law n.º 49/2005, 30 August16, and article
4º of Decree-Law nº 74/2006, 24 March17). This is due to purely administrative reasons (even if the
institutes meet pedagogical and scientific requirements) and constitutes a factor that conditions the
possibility to develop scientific investigation and the establishment of centers of excellence and knowledge
development in the regions
The "attributions" of the Higher Schools are:
a) "Realization of courses that lead to the academic degrees that the law permits them to confer;
b) "Realization of short duration courses that can be credited with adequate certificates or diplomas";
c) "Organization or cooperation in activities of educational, cultural and technical extension";
d) "Realize works of applied research and experimental development"
. The specific objectives of the Higher Schools are
a)
Undergraduate and graduate education ;
b) Life Long training and actualisation
c) Horizontal and vertical re-conversion of technicians
d) Support to regional development;
e) Research and development
At a national level, the number of higher education degree holders doubled in the last decade.
One should note that the process of higher education expansion is mainly due to the increase
in polytechnic education during the 1980's and 1990's. This type of education grew much
faster than university education and represented, in 2001, almost 42% of all of higher
education students. This figure attests the importance attributed to the polytechnic institutions
in the democratization of the access to higher education and underlines a clear social mission
in the regions where they are located
Polytechnics are national institutions with a strong regional matrix. The training that they offer
responds to necessities that are felt at the national level but they also seek to answer specific
needs of the regions where they are implanted (for example, the influence of the mould
industry for plastics in the 'Mechanical Engineering' degree at the IPL is evident). Through
training that is directed towards employability, a quality education is guaranteed in terms of
methodological options and contents. In this sense, polytechnic institutions, in the last fifteen
years (data from 2001) and parting from zero, reached a point where they had a 46% share of
all of the students enrolled in State-run higher education in Portugal at the undergraduate
level.
SELF-EVALUATION REPORT
In other training areas, it is due to the polytechnic education that the hegemony of the larger centers (Lisbon,
Porto and Coimbra) was diminished. The three centers represented, until recently, mandatory destinations in
a country with little or no tradition in continuous training.
Research, that according to the law (article 2º of Law n.º 54/90, 5 September, 19 and article 7.º of Law n.º
1/200320), should be of an applied nature is perhaps the least achieved attribution of the polytechnic subsystem. Portugal is a country that should increase its scientific production
The existent production is heavily associated with university education and particularly with the obtainment
of masters and doctoral degrees. Polytechnic education, being short lived, and confronted with the necessity
to train its own academic staff with these academic degrees ended up also being responsible for the
increase in national scientific production. That research, due to the fact that it appears associated with the
universities and the fact that it is developed within the advanced training of academic staff, lost much of its
applied character
Polytechnic higher education institutions have a body that represents them, the Coordinating Council of
Higher Polytechnic Institutes (CCISP), and notwithstanding their autonomy. This body hands down opinions
in all matters related to this level of education, as far as legislation and finance are concerned, and also
contributes to the development of education, research and culture.
Graduate Degrees
Considering the law on this matter, the strategic guidelines and the measures leading to their
implementation, education is the IPL's main activity.
The IPL has defined a set of criteria leading to the creation of new degrees, which are to abide with the
following main principles
1) They should adjust to the needs of the region and to the schools' educational projects
2) They should be socially relevant and offer good job opportunities
The IPL has applied these criteria by:
a) Analysing job market data: understanding the market needs either through publications and studies
carried out by institutions dedicated to this issue, by carrying out studies or by promoting meetings with
representatives of employers;
b) Inviting the local representatives to become involved in the decision making. Either formally or informally,
municipality representatives, representatives of business associations and of different professions;
c) Inviting professionals to become involved in the definition of the degrees' study plans so as to create a
degree with the adequate competence profile.
When comparing 2001/2002 and 2005/2006, we may conclude that the IPL has created 20 degrees and 17
others have been closed. In the last 5 years, our offer in terms of undergraduate degrees has increased
from 38 to 41 degrees. Some of these degrees where the first in Portugal, namely for Legal Counseling, Civil
Protection and Social Services
Presently, the IPL have already adjusted all degrees to the principles established by the Bologna
Declaration..
Education in the IPL focuses on "knowing" and on "being" as well as on "know-how", which means that
practical knowledge is valued and emphasis is given to students acquiring professional competences. When
organizing the study plans of its degrees, the IPL assigns practical teaching a high number of hours a week
which, in the case of the degree in nursing, amounts to 50% of the total number of hours per week. In order
to do so, the IPL has modern and well-equipped laboratories, in some cases very similar to the ones used in
professional environments, and professionals are very frequently invited to teach practical classes.
Besides this, up to now almost all degrees were followed by a curricular internship in a work environment.
The IPL is in close contact with professional associations. In some cases, as happened with the Association
for Legal Counseling, the board of directors of the referred association contributed to the definition of the
study plan of the degree in Legal Counseling. On the other hand, the National Association for Technical
Engineers is presently analysing the degree's new study plan, reorganized in accordance to the suggestions
proposed by the referred associations. Both the Association for Nurses and the Association for Accountants
directly accept IPL graduates for members
Although the IPL offers many different degrees to different targets, undergraduate degrees are still the
school's main concern and the one that allows the school its good positioning in the context of national
higher education. Usually 85% of the vacancies offered by the IPL in the access procedure are filled in the
first phase.
Post-Graduate Degrees
Only after 2006/2007 IPL is offering postgraduate degrees, namely master degrees. Up to now, however,
and so as to meet local needs, the IPL has promoted partnerships with several universities so that their
degrees could take place in the IPL
Several universities accepted this proposal and invited professors from the IPL to teach, guide, or be jury
members at presentations of master dissertations. This was a positive experience in terms of response to
obvious educational needs, as well as allowed the IPL and its academic staff to obtain know-how in
organizing and teaching a masters degree. The IPL wishes to create its own master degrees and maintain
or broaden these partnerships, which allowed for 12 master degrees from several Portuguese universities to
be taught here.
The IPL was also home for 9 editions of 5 other postgraduate degrees. These were not master degrees,
though it should be noted that completion of the curricular year of a master degree also allows for a postgraduate certificate.
In the academic year of 2008/09 we are proud to have the following masters and post-graduate degrees
either by our own or in partnership with other Higher Education institutions:
Master Degrees in partnership with other Higher Education Institutions
Partnership with Algarve University
Marketing
Business Management
Management of Touristic Organizations
Partnership with Miguel Torga Institute
Clinic Psychology
Human Resources Management
Partnership with Açores University
Oceans Studies
Partnership with de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro University
Civil Engineering
Electronic Engineering
Computer Science
Partnership with OMinho University
Public Administration
Partnership with Coimbra University
Business Strategy
Partnership with Aveiro University
Mechanical Engineering
Environment Engineering
Master Degrees exclusively of IPL
Aquaculture
Fine Arts
Biotechnology and Maritime Resources
Mobil Computation
Product Conception and Development
Civil Construction
Pre-school Education
Pre-School Education and 1st Cycle of Basic Education
1st and 2nd Cycle of Basic Education
English and French Teaching on Basic Education
Business Finance
Active Aging Intervention
International Business
Alternative Resolution of Conflicts
Automation Systems
Para legal Studies
Theatre
Multimedia technology and Communications
Telecommunications
Pos-Graduate Degrees
School Administration and Educational Administration
HACCP Auditing
6 Sigma at Black Belt Level
Communication, Advertising and Marketing
Management and Accountancy in Local Administration
Supervision
Sepcial Education- Motor-Cognitiv disability
Civil Engineering
Taxation
Applied Consumption Sicences
Weather
Portugal has the mildest climate of all Europe. We don’t have the continental extreme heat in summer due to
the 800 km of sea-shore, and therefore, the influence of the Atlantic Ocean is always present. In winter, the
average temperature is between +5 and +15 Celsius degrees and in the summer between +25 and +35
Celsius degrees. Normally the rain appears in the autumn and finishes in the spring and in Leiria we don’t
get to see snow ever!
Religion
In Portugal most of the population is Roman Catholic.
Portuguese Currency
The Portuguese use Euros, as well as almost all the EU countries.
Coins: 1 cent, 2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 Euro, 2 Euros.
Notes: 5 Euros, 10 Euros, 20 Euros, 50 Euros, 100 Euros, 200 Euros, 500 Euros.
Credit Cards and ATM Cashpoints
Most establishments accept credit cards: Visa, American Express, Eurocard, Mastercard and others.
Cashpoints (ATM) are in great quantity throughout the country and can be identified by an MB sign. You are
allowed to withdraw 200 Euros per day.
Living Cost
The living cost in Portugal is lower than in almost all the other EU countries.
To maintain a confortable standard of living, and excluding the accommodation and meals in the canteen,
students should have at least € 365 per month.
Some useful prices (in average)
Product
Price
Milk (1l)
€ 0,90
Bread
€ 0,30
Water
€ 0,80
Coffee
€ 0,55
Apples (1kg)
€ 2,00
Eating out in a restaurant € 6,00 / € 10,00
Pizza
€ 10,00
Beer in a pub
€ 1,50
Cinema ticket
€ 5,00
Bus ticket
€ 1,10
Book
€ 15,00
Gastronomy
Portuguese gastronomy is well known because it is very tasty and varied.
Being a country with a wide rural population and ready availability of vegetables, the soups are delicious. As
to fish, the general preference is to serve the fish in a simple manner, since this is a fishermen’s country and
we get to have always fresh fish. Normally fish is grilled or fried, and served with boiled potatoes and
vegetables or a side salad.
The Portuguese tend to treat meat in the opposite manner to that of fish, the flavour of the meat is often
disguised or dismissed by the strength of the sauce or garnishing.
Deserts are also delicious and varied. It is safe to assume that the majority of the Portuguese have a sweet
tooth’. Some deserts, specially the ones from the South, are very creative.
Call Abroad
In case you need to do a phone call, specially international calls, you can use the Post Office or the
telephone boxes that are distributed all over the streets. For that it will be useful to buy phone cards which
you can find in several places such as post offices, news stands and in fuel pump stores. Concerning prices,
they are determined by the time of phone calls each card allows to do. Phone calls are cheaper between
9.00 pm to 9.00 am, on weekend and official holidays.
To call abroad you should dial 00 + international code + area code + phone number. The international prefix
for Portugal is + 351.
You can also receive telephone calls if you are staying in the Residence Halls. Ask how in the International
Office.
Electric Power
The local current is 220 AC and the connection is made by a two-pin plug.
Post Office
Usually, post offices are opened from Monday to Friday between 9.00 am and 6.00 pm. However, you can
buy stamps in several other places which, generally, have a stamp sign.