The Education Charter for the Future: A Strategic Tool for Education Quality in Portugal

Overview & Synopsis

For over a century and a half, Portugal invested very little in education, which explains why it found itself in such a different situation from that of the developed countries of the Protestant industrialized North, or even from that of the Catholic Latin countries of southern Europe. In 1995, when elections were won by the Socialist party which headed the government without a majority in Parliament, the Government then decided to make education a priority. It undertook to increase GDP by 1% a year during its 4 years in office, and devised a strategy which was to help the country catch up in education within a single generation. The Education Charter for the Future was a key tool of this strategy, requiring the combined effort of all social and education partners. This in turn depended on the ability to soothe unrest in the education system, to institute dialogue, to define positive objectives and to mobilize whatever goodwill and energies were available. In view of the diagnosis arrived at in 1995 and the magnitude of the problems awaiting a solution, the Education Charter adopted the principle that "education is everybody's business" and not only the preserve of teachers, students, parents and civil servants. In this article, the author explains the general principles and the strategic objectives of the Charter. (Contains 11 notes.)