Portugal's basic schools go back on schedule between 11 and 15 September
A letter to school heads confirms the basic education calendar stands. Teachers with third-cycle classes who are also qualified for secondary will be excused from marking the special-session exams in early September.
If you have a child anywhere up to year nine, the answer is in: no delay. The Ministry of Education wrote to school directors on Monday confirming that every year of basic education starts between 11 and 15 September, exactly as the published calendar said it would.
The question was a real one. Four days earlier, education minister Fernando Alexandre had already pushed the start of secondary school back to 21 September, a full week later than planned, and said at the time that he was weighing the same move for the third cycle. He decided against it.
The trade-off falls on teachers, not pupils
Instead of shifting dates, the ministry shifted workload. Teachers who have third-cycle classes and are also qualified to teach at secondary level will not have to mark the year 11 and year 12 national exams sat during the special session in early September.
Those are precisely the teachers who would otherwise have been in two places at once, meeting new classes in one school while grading papers for another. The minister told directors the exemption means they can give the start of term their full attention. His letter was published while he was being questioned by parliament’s standing committee.
How the summer got to this point
None of this arrived out of nowhere. Problems with scanning and marking this year’s papers pushed grades late, and the National Exam Board ended up calling markers in to work between the end of July and the first days of August, suggesting schools ask staff to move holidays already booked.
Teaching unions rejected that framing, pointing out that the board’s president has no authority to interrupt anyone’s leave. Only a school head can do that, in writing and with stated reasons. It is the same saga that saw exam grades held back and the minister appealing to teachers for help, and that has already run up a half-million-euro bill for digital marking.
The official school calendar is published by Portugal’s Directorate-General for Education.
Image: António Amen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
