Other types and Methods of Education in Portugal
In the structure of the Portuguese educational system there are the following
types of special school education: special education, Vocational Training, Distance
Education, Portuguese teaching abroad. Each of these methods is an integral part of
school education, but is ruled by special provisions.

Special Education
The education of disabled children in Portugal began in the nineteenth century,
in two strands: Assistance (for which they were created asylums) and Education, from
1822, with the creation of the first establishment to serve the deaf and blind later added
to Casa Pia de Lisboa. This was followed by the creation of responses at the level of
deafness and blindness.
In 1929 was created the Bureau of Primary Education and Normal Teaching in
order to organize special classes, and the first was opened in 1929, in Lisbon. It was
also in the academic year 1929/1930 that through an order signed by the Minister
Eduardo Costa Ferreira, the Bureau of Primary Education and Normal Teaching was
allowed to form new classes, recruiting staff from specialist teachers.
In 1930, special classes are created in other schools in Lisbon. The Navarro de
Paiva Institute starts integrating and educating children and said abnormal offenders
presented to the Juvenile Courts. In February 1930, were installed in primary schools in
Lisbon special classes for "retarded", involving about 300 children.
In 1942, in collaboration with the Institute Aurélio da Costa Ferreira, a boost
occurred in the education of mentally handicapped and disabled people.
In the 1950's, new intervention centers and associations in the field of disability
are created, many streamlined by groups of parents: in 1955, the Juvenile Centre
Hellen Keller, by the Portuguese League for Disabled People, in 1960, the Portuguese
Association for Cerebral Palsy is created, with its headquarters in Lisbon.
in 1962, the Portuguese Association of Parents and Friends of Children
Mongoloids it’s created later renamed the Portuguese Association of Parents and
Friends of Children Mental Decreased. In 1964, the Institute for Assistance to Minors
creates the Disability Education Services. Also in 1964, the creation of the
specialization of Teachers Maladjusted Children. In 1970, it created in Coimbra, the
Cerebral Palsy Center, in 1971; it created the Portuguese Association for the
Protection of Autistic Children.
In the 1970s, reflecting the movements that internationally were defending
equality prospects, there have been some attempts to promote the integration of
special education into mainstream education. In 1971, it published the Law n. 6/71,
November 8th - Law on the Rehabilitation and Integration of Disabled Persons - which
promulgates the foundation for the rehabilitation and social integration, governments
will give importance and special education support. With the Veiga Reform, in 1973,
the Ministry of Education is responsible for the Special Education and published in the
legislation related to the organization of the General Management of Primary and
Secondary Education already in several divisions with the aim of organizing
educational structures.
Between 1970 and 1980, three juridical devices configured the set of legal
principles of the fundamental rights of disabled citizens: the Portuguese Constitution
(1976), Law on the Education System (1986) and Law on Prevention and the
Rehabilitation and Integration of People with Disabilities (1989). In regular school, soon
began to intervene in a more noticeable way since 1975, first with teachers roaming
and later with the creation of teams of Special Education (1976), which aim to integrate
the disabled into regular classes. In this process of democratization of education
CERCI's” are created “and other institutions to support mental disabilities, such as the
Portuguese Association of Cerebral Palsy in Porto.
In 1977, Decree-Law No. 174/77, of May 2, applied to the Preparatory and
Secondary Education, allows special enrollment conditions and assessment for
students with disabilities.
The International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) and the World Programme of
Action concerning disabled persons constituted a milestone awareness of society to
the human rights of people with disabilities, which would become more effective as a
result of the Decade of the United Nations for Persons with Disabilities (1983-1992).
Portugal, by signing the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994) is committed
to apply its principles, which has not been a linear task, since they still linger concepts,
structures, norms and practices which contradict the values that guide Inclusive
Education. In recent years there has been a set of conceptual and socio-legal changes,
which introduced instability and uncertainty in the educational system, which may be
perhaps promoting an inclusive school or on the contrary, may be generating situations
of segregation and / or educational and social exclusion.

Vocational Training
Overview
The system of continuing vocational education and training in Portugal consists of a
range of flexible training pathways which make it possible to build a vocational
qualification that suits individual trainees’ interests and needs. The aim is that trainees
acquire or develop knowledge and skills in the technical and social fields allowing them
to re-enter or improve their position on the labour market.
Continuing adult education and training courses
Adult education and training courses are aimed at adults over the age of 18 who have
no qualifications or whose qualifications are inadequate for integration in the labour
market. The process of Recognition, Validation and Certification of Skills is the most
common platform for access to these courses.
The aim of these courses is to raise the adult population’s academic ability and
vocational qualifications by offering a combination of education and training that
enhances their employability and certifies acquired learning. Courses are based on:
• flexible training pathways designed on the basis of recognition and validation of the
skills adults have acquired via formal, non-formal and informal routes;
• coordinated training pathways that comprise basic training and technology training or
just basic training;
• training focusing on the acquisition of knowledge, know-how and skills that
complement and promote apprenticeships.
These courses lead to a Cycle 3 basic education certificate and a Level 2 vocational
training certificate, or a secondary-education certificate and a Level 3 vocational
training certificate.
Attendance of an EFA course that does not lead to certification entitles participants to
request a certificate of validation of skills, which lists all the skills validated during the
training process.
EFA courses are designed and run by the respective instigating bodies or by a third
party. In both cases, the training body must be part of the network of training
institutions included in the national qualifications system. EFA courses that focus on
improving academic abilities are run by public, private or cooperative education
establishments with autonomy over the training they provide, or by direct-management
or joint-management Vocational Training Institute for Employment and Vocational
Training.
Training for groups with special integration problems
In addition to the forms of training described in the previous section, there are
also courses aimed specifically at groups that face special problems in joining the
labour market. Most of these courses are promoted by the Institute for Employment
and Vocational Training.
Vocational training courses for disadvantaged groups
These are vocational training and guidance courses that are designed to meet
the particular needs of the target group, with a view to promoting their social and
occupational (re)integration. Target groups include the long-term unemployed, ethnic
minorities, immigrants, young people and adults with poor literacy skills and with
inadequate personal, social and vocational skills, as well as other people who, because
of their socioeconomic situation or their behavior and attitudes, are experiencing
serious difficulties as regards social and occupational integration.
Special vocational training courses
These are vocational training courses aimed at specific target groups – young
people at risk, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged
population groups – with a view to helping them to obtain a basic vocational
qualification so they can enter the labour market.
Vocational training for people with disabilities
The aim here is to provide people with disabilities with the knowledge and skills
they need to obtain a vocational qualification that will enable them to secure or
maintain a job and/or improve their position on the labor market. Training is
personalized, based on individual training plans, and lasts for a maximum of four years,
which may in exceptional cases be increased to five years.

Distance Education in Portugal
The evidence that it was possible to provide high quality teaching in most scientific,
humanistic and cultural subjects, through a process which did not require the students
to be physically present in the classroom, and allow them to learn on their own through
the use of didactic materials purposely developed was established by the Open
University in Great Britain. This success determined the spread of distance teaching
universities (commonly known as open universities) all over the world (Trindade, 1989).
Portugal could not remain inattentive to this happening. In 1988, the Universidade
Aberta de Portugal was created.
A glance at the evolution of Distance Education
As early as 1927, during the First Republic in Portugal, the possible advantages
and dangers of the use of audio-visual aids in the educational process was already an
issue. Five years after, due to the assumed importance of cinematography in educating
people, a commission was formed, called Comissão do Cinema Educativo
(Commission for Educational Cinema) under the Ministry of Public Instruction, with the
objective of proposing the production, authorship and distribution of educational films.
Thirty years later, in 1963, a big step was taken in the direction of developing
educational audiovisuals with the creation of the Centro de Estudos de Pedagogia
Audio-visual (Centre of Studies on Audio-visual Pedagogy) whose aim was mainly
laboratory research in two areas: one regarding the use of audio-visual processes in
education (as support mechanisms) and another of stimulating, co-ordinating and
evaluating its applications in this area. The above research pointed to the need to
create an organisation that could energise the production of educational materials, and
the Instituto de Meios Audiovisuais de Ensino - IMAVE (Institute for Media Support in
Teaching) was created in the National Ministry of Education. The main purpose of the
Instituto was the production, buying, dissemination and management of educational
programmes to be transmitted through the radio and television aimed at a specific
population.
In this same year, the Telescola (Teleschool) was launched in Portugal. This was the
first systematic use of the media in the formal educational context. Its use was a way of
meeting the shortage of teachers needed to put in practice increased compulsory
education (to the 6th grade of schooling). Yet, Rocha Trindade (1990) argues that, in
technical terms, this system was not distance teaching. In his manual Introduction to
Educational Communication while describing the use of media in school context, he
describes
in
detail
this
programme.
He
says:
teaching. In his manual Introduction to Educational Communication while describing
the use of media in school context, he describes in detail this programme. He says:
"Note-se que, em termos técnicos, a metodologia própria da telescola não se confunde
com ensino a distância: o único ponto de contacto entre os dois conceitos reside na
utilização intensiva de materiais didácticos mediatizados. Trata-se, por conseguinte, de
ensino presencial (em classe, sujeito a horário, coma presença do professor), mas
apoioado por meios audio-visuais. Adesignação de ensino semi-directo, aplicado à
Telescola, embora algo enganador, é relativamente aceitável".
The average number of students using Telescola reached 60,000 per year with an
overall through-put of one million students (Trindade, 1990).
In the following year, with the educational reforms of Veiga Simão, IMAVE was
substituted by the Instituto de Tecnologia Educativa - ITE (Institute of Educational
Technology). This new institution had the same objectives as the former institute, but
with the added clear objectives of updating pedagogical methods, through the use of
the most modern ways of teaching.
In 1975, one year after the Portuguese Revolution, a report by an ad hoc commission
recommending the creation of a distance teaching university and presenting a
prospective working model which, as Rocha Trindade says (1989), was the first
important step in the direction of the creation of a distance university in Portugal. In
1976 UNIABE - Universidade Aberta was created with the objective of contributing to
the progress of democracy and the construction of socialism. In spite of its good
intentions, this represented a false start, for the decree of creation was not put into
actual action.
The first initiative in distance education was the Ano Propedêutico (the pre-university
year) which arose as an ad hoc solution to the problem of university access after the
Revolution of 1974. This programme proved the viability of developing a centralised
distance teaching programme to large adult audiences geographically dispersed. This
experience, led in the year 1979 to the creation of the Instituto Português de Ensino a
Distância (Portuguese Institute for Distance Education) with the goals of acquiring
knowledge, professional competence, facilities and equipment and preparing the
ground for the future Universidade Aberta. In 1984 the team of IPED, whose president
was Trindade, considered the institute ready to implement the third goal - launch the
Universidade Aberta. Despite this fact, new difficulties arose at that time, both financial
and cultural. The lack of compatibility, at the level of decision-making, among many
other priorities of the educational system and the assumed permanent high costs
requested by a new educational structure with rather unconventional, deep, and
innovative characteristics raised much scepticism
and rejection among
the
Portuguese intelligenzia (Trindade, 1989).
A significant encouragement to the internal recognition of the need to create an open
university in Portugal, through a project adjusted to the particular characteristics of the
Portuguese social environment, was given by the European Association of Distance
Teaching Universities, created in 1987. The Project Universidade Aberta was a
founding member of this group. A technical evaluation elaborated by the leaders of the
Association was addressed to the Portuguese Government in defence of the Projecto
Universidade Aberta. The issuing of a recommendation of the European Parliament on
the significance of open universities in the construction of Europe and the increasing
importance given by Community authorities to the same problem (as, for instance, the
programmes ERASMUS, DELTA, Strand D of COMETT), may well have contributed to
overcoming the difficulties presented by several Portuguese decision-making entities.
Progress advanced quickly and in 1988 at the closing ceremony of the Conference
"Long Term Developments for European Distance Education" held in Lisbon with
representatives of all European open universities, the decision to create the
Universidade Aberta of Portugal was publicly announced by the Portuguese Ministry of
Education.

Portuguese Teaching Abroad
Arising from the sharp economic, social, technical and educational, the Portuguese
Teaching Abroad covers different realities, having been undergoing significant
changes.
Concerning this type of teaching, the first programs of Portuguese Language and
Culture of 1978, were designed on the basis of equivalence to the Portuguese
curriculum and had as its target audience children and young people within the
Portuguese communities. Three decades later, it appears that the profile of the of the
Portuguese public learner is increasingly diverse, covering children and young children
of Portuguese workers in situations of recent mobility, the Portuguese descendants
who already belong to the second or third generation, as well as speakers of other
languages.
The Portuguese Teaching Abroad is therefore a reality polysemic, which currently
involves a set of different situations:
a) Teaching of Portuguese language and culture to Portuguese descendants;
b) Teaching of Portuguese language and culture courses integrated in the educational systems
of the host countries;
c) Teaching of Portuguese language and portuguese culture to speakers of other languages;
d) Curriculum support in cases of mobility of Portuguese citizens to other countries of the
European Union 3;
e) Experiences of bilingual education;
f) Portuguese language teaching in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa;
g) Teaching perspective of the Portuguese language in some of the countries of Mercosur.