History of the university subsector

The tower of the University of Coimbra, the oldest Portuguese university

The North Tower of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon, the largest Portuguese engineering degree-conferring institution.

Public university schools have a long history in Portugal. They started in the Middle Ages, and like other European medieval universities at the time, they were founded by the monarchs under the authority and supervision of the Catholic Church. For many centuries there was only one university, the University of Coimbra, founded in 1290 in Lisbon. It was founded as a Studium Generale (Estudo Geral). Scientiae thesaurus mirabilis, the royal charter announcing the institution of the current University of Coimbra was dated 1 March of that year, although efforts had been made at least since 1288 to create this first university studies in Portugal. Throughout history it transferred between Coimbra and Lisbon several times, definitely settling in Coimbra during the 16th century (1537). The Colégio do Espírito Santo, a university college, was an old higher learning institution which operated between 1559 and 1759 in Évora, but it was shut down during the Marquis of Pombal government, because it was run by the Jesuits, and the marquis implemented strong secular policies. A new state-run university at Évora was founded in 1973 – the University of Évora. Within the scope of the Portuguese Empire, the Portuguese founded in 1792 the oldest engineering school of Latin America (the Real Academia de Artilharia, Fortificação e Desenho), as well as the oldest medical college of Asia (the Goa Medical College) in 1842.

Since the population was largely illiterate, the two universities at Coimbra and Évora, and some later higher-education schools in Lisbon (e.g. (Escola Politécnica: 1837-1911; Curso Superior de Letras: 1859-1911; and Curso Superior de Comércio: 1884–1911)) and Porto (successively Aula Náutica: 1762-1803; Real Academia da Marinha e Comércio: 1803-1837; and the Academia Politécnica: 1837–1911), were enough for a small population inside a territory like Continental Portugal of the 16th-19th centuries. During the 19th century some other isolated higher-education schools were established. For instance, two medical schools were established: the Lisbon Royal Medical-Surgical School and Oporto Royal Medical-Surgical School opened in 1825. They were later incorporated into two new universities created in 1911 in Lisbon and Oporto, which also absorbed Lisbon's former Escola Politécnica and Curso Superior de Letras, and Oporto's Academia Politécnica, which were reformed and upgraded their facilities in the same year. Other successive institutions were the IST – Instituto Superior Técnico and the Instituto Superior de Comércio, successor of the former Curso Superior de Comércio, (today ISEG – Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão), both born from the former Lisbon Institute of Industry and Commerce which originated the creation of university schools in 1911.

With the advent of the Republic, the University of Lisbon and the University of Oporto were created in 1911. In 1930, a new university in Lisbon was created, the Technical University of Lisbon, which incorporated the Instituto Superior Técnico and some other university institutes and colleges such as the Instituto Superior de Comércio, and agriculture and veterinary schools.

A view of the University of Beira Interior, in Covilhã

In 1972 the ISCTE, a public university institute, was created in Lisbon by the decree Decreto-Lei nº 522/72, of 15 December, as a first step towards a new and innovative public university in the city. Due to the Carnation Revolution of 1974 this first facility of a never-completed projected larger university stayed alone. In 1973 a new wave of state-run universities opened in Lisbon – the New University of Lisbon, Braga – the Minho University and Évora – the University of Évora. These last days of the Estado Novo régime were marked by the most significant growth in enrolments for both secondary and university education in Portugal. After 1974, the anti-Estado Novo revolution's year, new public universities were created in Vila Real – the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Aveiro – the University of Aveiro, Covilhã – the University of Beira Interior (upgraded from the former Polytechnic Institute of Covilhã which was created in 1973), Faro – the University of the Algarve, Madeira – the University of Madeira, and the Azores – the University of the Azores.

In 1988, the Portuguese government founded a public distance university, the Universidade Aberta (Aberta University), an "Open University" with headquarters in Lisbon, regional branches in Porto and Coimbra, and study centres all over the country.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a boom of private institutions was experienced and many private universities started to open. Most private universities had a poor reputation and were known for making it easy for students to enter and also to get high grades. In 2007, several of those private institutions or their heirs, were investigated and faced compulsory closure (for example, the infamous Independente University closing) or official criticism with recommendations that the state-managed investigation proposed for improving their quality and avoid termination.

Catholic University of Portugal's business and economics faculty in Lisbon.

Without large endowments like those received, for example, by many US private universities and colleges which are attractive to the best researchers and students, the private higher education institutions of Portugal, with a few exceptions, do not have neither the financial support nor the academic profile to reach the highest teaching and research standards of the top Portuguese public universities. In addition, the private universities have faced a restrictive lack of collaboration with the major enterprises which, however, have developed fruitful relationships with many public higher education institutions.

Nowadays, the Catholic University of Portugal, a private university with branches in the cities of Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Viseu, and Figueira da Foz (founded before the others, in 1967, and officially recognized in 1971), offers some well-recognized degrees. This private university has a unique status, being run by the Catholic Church.

The Portuguese universities have been the exclusive granters of master's and doctoral degrees in the country and are to this day the major source of research and development in Portugal. Today, as in the past, they have full autonomy to offer all levels of academic degrees and the power to create new graduate or undergraduate courses in almost every major field of study. By the time of the implementation of the Bologna Process (2006) in Portuguese higher education, 42.5% of the state-run university teaching staff had a doctorate degree in 2005 – 65% in 2007 after the Bologna Process.^[17] (see list of universities in Portugal)

Due to the Portuguese sovereign debt crisis in the late 2000s, and the subsequent IMF-EU financial assistance to the Portuguese Republic from 2011 onward, many universities and other higher education institutions suffered financially. Many were on verge of bankruptcy and were forced to increase its admissions and tuition fees while the budget dwindled and staff members and bonuses were being reduced.^[19]

History of the polytechnic subsector

Portuguese learning institutions called "polytechnics" or "industrial and commercial institutes" were established in various periods with very different roles and objectives. They were designations for institutions ranging from university or polytechnic institutes to technical and vocational institutes.

• The Polytechnic Schools at Lisbon and Porto:

The 19th century – the industrialization er,– created the need for new education programs in the country, "industrial studies". In 1837, the Escola Politécnica (Polytechnic School) in Lisbon and the Academia Politécnica (Polytechnic Academy) in Porto were opened. They were university higher learning institutions conferring academic degrees, fully focused on the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Apart from sharing the name, they were not related to the polytechnic subsystem which has existed in Portugal since the 1970s, or to any current institution belonging to it.

The label and legal statute of University had been reserved for exclusive use by the University of Coimbra, but with the Republican revolution in 1911, two new universities were founded. The Escola Politécnica and Academia Politécnica were the core from which the sciences and engineering faculties, respectively, of the new universities of Lisbon and Porto emerged.

• The Industrial Institutes at Lisbon and Porto:

The Prime Minister of the Kingdom, Fontes Pereira de Melo, was not satisfied with the excessive academism of both schools (Escola Politécnica (Polytechnic School) in Lisbon and the Academia Politécnica (Polytechnic Academy)), as he considered the institutions excessively theoretical for industrial labour force needs, as both were modelled on the only Portuguese university – the ancient University of Coimbra. Thus, in 1852, the minister created the Instituto Industrial de Lisboa (Lisbon Industrial Institute) which awarded higher education degrees between 1898 and 1911, and the Escola Industrial do Porto (Porto Industrial School), which a decade later was also declared an Institute and awarded higher education degrees between 1905 and 1918. The Instituto Industrial de Lisboa gave birth to the IST in 1911, which with other institutions formed the Technical University of Lisbon in 1930.

• The Industrial and Commercial Institutes and Schools:

The Industrial Superior Studies were cut in 1918 by the minister Azevedo Neves reforms, as the country suffered many social and political convulsions, and the creation in 1911 of the new universities in Lisbon and Porto covered the highest educational needs of the country at the time. Between 1918 and 1974 (until the approval of decree Decreto-Lei 830/74 of 31 December 1974), the Industrial and Commercial Institutes in Porto and Lisbon, plus new ones created in Coimbra (1965) and Aveiro, provided vocational and technical education, instead of higher education.

• Modern-day polytechnic sub sector development:^[20]

The idea of creating a polytechnic sector in Portugal can be traced back to the OECD's Mediterranean Regional Project, MRP, of 1959. This project aimed at assessing future needs for skilled labour in five Mediterranean countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Yugoslavia and Portugal) and had a lasting impact in terms of the political and social perception of education, with significant effects on the educational structure of the participating countries. These changes included the expansion of the higher education network by creating new university-level institutions, while a binary system was initiated through the establishment of polytechnic institutes and several colleges of teacher training (Parliament Act 5/73 of 25 July). After 1974 the existing polytechnics were transformed into University Institutes under the allegation that they should not remain "second class" institutions. It was in this context that successive governments established contact with the World Bank and, from 1978 to 1984, about nineteen different missions visited Portugal. A final statement was based on two main principles:

• A basic emphasis on an economic approach to higher education to improve efficiency by attaining objectives at the lowest possible cost, e.g. containing long term university degrees while promoting shorter technical degrees, shorter teacher training degrees, higher student/staff ratios, etc.
• A perspective of a world division of labour that led defining country specific roles.

Although the final report welcomed the expansion of higher education, correcting the prior situation of unequal and limited access, the World Bank did not favour further expansion: "...the enrolment represents 8% of the 18–22 age group and could be considered adequate. In view of the rapidly increased university enrolments, which represent an uneconomical drain in the economy...[the Bank recommends a] gradual introduction of quantitative restraints" (World Bank, 1977 Progress report). At the same time, the World Bank urged the Portuguese authorities to restrain enrolment quotas so as to make "better use" and rationalise the supply of higher education and improve the management of the system, namely in terms of accountability, coordination, and efficiency. Future expansions should be planned, taking into account manpower needs, and demographic and enrolment trends. Subsequently, the World Bank produced two "Staff Appraisal Reports", which provided insights about the negotiations between the Bank's Mission and the Portuguese government, and further confirmed the Bank's priorities. In the first Report of Assessment (No. 1807-PO, 1978), the Bank insisted on three criteria: balancing the supply of higher education graduates with the economic needs of the country, developing a persistent and consistent policy towards vocational education, and upgrading teacher training programs. The Bank suggested that Portugal needed not only to train high level technicians but also middle level personnel (on a yearly basis: 1400 technicians with short cycle post-secondary education, 500 agricultural technicians and 6000 middle-level managers). Subsequently, the government passed Decree-Law 397/77 of 17 September, which established a numerus clausus for every university study programme and eliminated the threat to the new short vocational education programs – that without reducing the supply of engineering jobs, graduates of the technician training institutes would find employment too scarce. The World Bank was critical of the erratic policies toward the existing technical institutes, and of the excessive enrolment in university engineering programs and the lax approach on managing vacancy quotas, and raised the issue of diseconomies of scale in the system, suggesting that there were too many institutions with small dimensions. The government replied to the Bank's demands with Decree-Law 513-T/79, which established a network of polytechnic institutes, including Higher Schools of Education. The main objectives of Polytechnic education were: to provide education with an applied and technical emphasis and strong vocational orientation, and for training intermediate-level technicians for industries, service companies and educational units (first cycle of basic education).

During the 1970s and 1980s, a network of polytechnic institutes replaced short-cycle technical training with polytechnic higher education. This network include the Higher Schools of Education (Escolas Superiores de Educação)^[21] They were opened in many cities as confederations of Escolas Superiores and Institutos Superiores providing short-cycle bacharelato degrees (in education, music, engineering, management, agriculture, and other areas), many of which lacked a solid and realistic strategy. Between 1979 and 1986, a few were almost immediately upgraded to create new universities, like the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, the University of Beira Interior, or the University of the Algarve. Some of those first polytechnics were transformed into University Institutes so that they would not remain "second class" institutions, and a few years later were upgraded to full chartered universities.^[20] The polytechnic institutes, heirs of a large network of reputable but discontinued intermediate schools with traditions in technical and vocational education, which also incorporated other older institutions formerly known as industrial institutes (see Instituto Industrial de Lisboa, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa and Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto), were originally created to produce skilled intermediate^[20] technicians in specific areas. The short-cycle polytechnical degrees were mainly aimed at training of intermediate technicians for industry and commerce but also for basic health and education, instead of academicians (like biologists, chemists, economists, geographers, historians, lawyers, mathematicians, philosophers, physicians, physicists, et al.), engineers, lecturers, researchers and scientists that were already produced by Portuguese universities. In 1974, the Industrial and Commercial Institutes of vocational education were transformed into higher learning Superior Institutes of Engineering and Accounting and Administration and initially integrated in the university subsector; although originally exclusively focused on providing short-cycle degrees, the need for a stronger polytechnic sector, and these schools' history and purpose, led them to be integrated in the polytechnic subsector in the late 1980s (Administrative Rule 389/88 of 25 October 1988 – Decreto-Lei n.º 389/88, de 25 de Outubro). However, in the following decades the polytechnic institutions didn't assume their specific role as tertiary education vocational schools, which were created to award practical diplomas in more technical or basic fields. Non-university intermediate professionals and skilled workers for the industry, agriculture, commerce and other services where needed. As more new public university institutions were founded or expanded, polytechnics didn't feel comfortable with their subaltern status in the Portuguese higher education system and a desire to be upgraded into university-like institutions grew among the polytechnic institutions' administrations. This desire of emancipation and evolution from polytechnic status to university status, was not followed by better qualified teaching staff, better facilities for teaching or researching, or by a stronger curricula with a more selective admission criteria, comparable with those enforced by almost all public university institutions. Criteria ambiguity and the general lower standards in polytechnic higher education and admission, were fiercely criticised by education personalities like university rectors, regarding issues like the lack of admission exams in mathematics for polytechnic engineering applicants, and the proliferation of administration and management courses everywhere, many without a proper curriculum in mathematics, statistics and economics-related disciplines.^[2]

After its creation in the late 1970s, polytechnic institutions used to offer a 3-year course (the engineering superior institutes created in 1974, awarded 4-year bacharelato degrees before have been integrated into the polytechnic sector in 1988), awarding a bacharelato degree (lower than a bachelor's degree^[22]) instead of a university licenciatura (licentiate) degree which was four to six years.^[13][23] The Portuguese licenciatura was a longer undergraduate degree, which included a licensure for working in a particular profession and an accreditation by the respective professional orders – ordens profissionais. The licenciatura diploma was also required for those applicants who wished to undertake masters and doctorate programs.

The publication of Administrative Rule 645/88 of 21 September 1988 authorised polytechnic schools to teach two-year courses of specialised higher education (CESE – Curso de Estudos Superiores Especializados) within the fields already taught at the school. This system guaranteed a prominent independence between the two levels (bachelor's and CESE) since it was not compulsory to maintain a coherence of subjects. The diploma of specialised higher education (DESE – Diploma de Estudos Superiores Especializados) thus emerged much more as a post-graduate diploma than a complementary education to the bachelor student who wanted a licentiate degree. Changing the structure of the CESE into two-stage degrees obtained in two levels known as licenciatura bietápica (bachelor's and licentiate, in which access to the second level is granted immediately after completing the first), as consigned in Administrative Rule 413A/98 of 17 July 1998, removed the formal differences between the university licenciatura and the new two-stage polytechnic licenciatura (licenciatura bietápica).

By the government decree of July 1998 the polytechnics started to offer a two-stage curriculum (the first three years conferring a bacharelato degree, the following two years a licenciatura bietápica degree); both are undergraduate degrees, but the universities were offering a single licentiate degree (licenciatura) of four to five years. This was changed with the Bologna process with a new system of three years for a bachelor's degree (licenciatura). Two additional years grant a master's degree (mestrado) which is conferred by the polytechnic institute under protocols with a partner university or alone when the polytechnic institution is in full compliance with the necessary requirements (proper research activity, doctoral teaching staff, and budget). The doctoral degree (doutoramento) is conferred only by the universities, as it always has been. By the time of the implementation of the Bologna Process (2006) in Portuguese higher education, 9.5% of the state-run polytechnic teaching staff had a doctorate degree in 2005 – 15% in 2007 after the Bologna Process.^[17]

The Lisbon Superior Institute of Engineering (ISEL, one of the colleges resulting from the former Lisbon Institute of Industry, today part of the Polytechnical Institute of Lisbon), with the support of the University of Lisbon (UL), approved in 2005 the express will to reintegrate the university subsector as part of the University of Lisbon^[24] which do not have a Faculty of Engineering and through the assimilation and reorganization of ISEL could transform that polytechnic engineering school to a new university engineering school inside UL. For ISEL itself, this change could represent an emancipation from the limited polytechnic system, which has been regarded as a minor higher education subsystem in Portugal (although by the mid-2000s with many upgrades and the Bologna process, the formal differences are less notorious), due to limitations that were imposed by State Education Laws on polytechnics (such as the professor's career, the professor's wages, the State funds spending and the teaching competences of the polytechnics). The Porto Superior Institute of Engineering (ISEP) was never merged into the University of Porto (or one of its predecessor schools, the Polytechnic Academy). The original proposal was dropped, partially because the University of Porto has owned its own engineering school since 1911 – the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, known as Faculdade de Engenharia since 1926, unlike the University of Lisbon.

Nursing and health technologies technicians (technicians in clinical analysis, radiology, audiology, nuclear medicine and other technical fields in health) are also polytechnic higher education courses offered by nursing schools and schools of health technologies which are grouped into polytechnic institutes, and, in some cases, into universities (remaining in each of those situations as autonomous schools belonging to the polytechnic subsector). The nursing schools were legally defined as comparable to polytechnic institutions in 1988 (Administrative Rule 480/88 of 23 December 1988 – Decreto Lei n.º 480/88, de 23 de Dezembro), and started to provide higher education degrees in nursing in 1990 (Rule 821/89 of 15 September 1990 – Portaria n.º 821/89, de 15 de Setembro). Before 1990 nursing schools were not academic-degree-conferring institutions, and did not belong to the higher educational system. In 1995 they were fully integrated into the polytechnic subsystem (Administrative Rule 205/95 of 5 August 1995 – Decreto Lei n.º 205/95, de 5 de Agosto), and in 1999 the new courses in nursing were approved, conferring a licenciatura diploma (Administrative Rule 353/99 of 8 September 1999 – Decreto Lei n.º 353/99, de 8 de Setembro).

Between 1918 and 1974, some older schools that are today integrated into the polytechnic subsector were industrial and commercial schools of vocational education, as well as intermediate schools for primary-education-teacher training, schools of agriculture, or nursing schools. Current establishments for polytechnic studies in engineering such as the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra, the nursing schools, and the current polytechnic schools of education (Escolas Superiores de Educação) during that period had no relation with higher education, and were known by other names. Admission to these schools was open to people with no complete secondary education, with universities reserved for secondary school graduates. For decades, these vocational schools of intermediate education (known as ensino médio) did not have the higher education status or credentials they have now. However, the majority of current polytechnical institutes was fully created in the 1980s and 1990s. It must be remembered that the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa and the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, both born from the earlier industrial institutes (Instituto Industrial), were higher education degree-conferring institutions in engineering during a short period before 1919, and were known by other institutional names in their long histories.

However, in the 1990s and 2000s, a fast growth and proliferation of and state-run polytechnical institutions with lower educational standards and ambiguous academic integrity, was responsible for unnecessary and uneconomic allocation of resources with no adequate quality output in terms of both new highly qualified graduates and research.^[18] While across the world polytechnics have transformed themselves into full universities, in Portugal, with the lowest higher education levels in Europe, continues to segregate the sectors based on the world bank model of the 1950s and 1960s.

• Metamorphoses of current and Former polytechnic institutes:

During the 1980s, the former Polytechnic Institute of Faro, in the Algarve region, southern Portugal, was incorporated into the University of the Algarve, but as a totally independent institution in terms of staff, curricula and competences, remaining a full public polytechnic institution within a larger and independent public university but completely separated (economies of differentiation maybe?). The former and short-lived Polytechnic Institute of Vila Real, in northern Portugal, was closed and then reformed, having been reorganized into a university in the 1980s – the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. The University of Beira Interior in Covilhã was founded in 1979 after the closing of a former (also short-lived) polytechnic institute – the PIC – Polytechnic Institute of Covilhã (Instituto Politécnico da Covilhã) (1973–1979). A remarkable level of achievements and a successful political lobbying, allowed PIC in 1979 to be promoted by the Portuguese Ministry of Education to a higher institutional level, university institute. Seven years later, in 1986, the University Institute of Beira Interior was granted full university status, becoming the current University of Beira Interior.

Degrees

Schools that adhered to the Bologna process (since 2006–2007) maintained the degree names but their significance changed. In ascending order of importance:^[28]

Bacharelato The Portuguese bacharelato degree awarded by polytechnic institutions or its predecessors, was a Bachelor degree (but not an honours degree, only the then licenciatura degree was equal to an honours degree) – title: Bacharel or Engenheiro Técnico for engineering technologists – abbreviation: none or Bach.

• Non-Bologna: three or four-year course in a polytechnic (before 2007)
• Bologna: no longer used.

Licenciatura (Academic License) – title: Licenciado (popular: Dr or Engenheiro for a License in engineering) – abbreviation used in front of holder's name: Lic. (popular: Dr. or Eng. for Engineer, used extensively (formal and colloquially))

• Non-Bologna: licenciatura was an honors degree with four- to six-year course in a university, or a Bacharelato complemented with one or two extra years in a polytechnic (called licenciatura bietápica, meaning dual-stage license) or university (before 2007)
• Bologna: three-year course in a university or polytechnic. Lincenciatura is now an ordinary degree and no longer an honours degree.

Pós-Graduação or Especialização (Postgraduate degree) – no specific title

• Usually one year of specific study for holders of a Licenciatura or Mestrado.

Mestrado (Master's degree) – title: Mestre

• Non-Bologna: advanced degree in a specific scientific field, indicating capacity for conducting practical research. Courses last two to four semesters, including lectures and the preparation and discussion of an original dissertation. It is only open to those who have obtained a grade average of 14/20 or higher in the Licenciatura course. Those with less than 14/20 may also be eligible for a Mestrado course after analysis of the curriculum by the university.
• Bologna: Licenciatura complemented with one or two extra years in a polytechnic or university; or, in some cases, a 5- to 6-year joint degree (Mestrado Integrado) in a university. Students have to present their public thesis defense in order to be awarded the degree.

Doutorado (Doctorate) – used in front of holder's name: Doutor

• The Doutorado is conferred by universities to those who have passed the Doctorate examinations and have defended a thesis, usually to pursue a teaching and researching career at university level. There is no fixed period to prepare for the Doctorate examinations. Candidates must hold a degree of Mestrado or Licenciatura (or a legally equivalent qualification) and have competences and merit that are recognized by the university.

Agregação (Agrégation) – used in front of holder's name: Professor Doutor

• This is the highest qualification reserved to holders of the Doutor degree. It requires the capacity to undertake high level research and special pedagogical competence in a specific field. It is awarded after passing specific examinations.

Accreditation

The Agência de Avaliação e Acreditação do Ensino Superior (Higher Education Accreditation and Evaluation Agency) was created in the late 2000s and started to work in the early 2010s. In 2012, its first thorough accreditation and evaluation report concluded that 25% (or 107) of 420 (out of 3500) bachelor's, master's and doctorate degree programs offered in Portugal, did not comply with elemental quality and academic integrity standards and should be terminated.^[29] Besides the state-run accreditation agency, many professional associations of some of the regulated professions have run their own accreditation systems – they are known as Ordens (these include several Ordens, some much larger, reputed and older than others, like the Ordem dos Engenheiros; Ordem dos Advogados; Ordem dos Farmacêuticos; Ordem dos Enfermeiros; Ordem dos Arquitectos; Ordem dos Médicos; Ordem dos Biólogos; Ordem dos Economistas; Ordem dos Revisores Oficiais de Contas; etc.). In general, registration with such associations is a requisite for the legal practice of the profession and it normally requires an admission examination. In some orders (e.g. Ordem dos Engenheiros for the exercise of engineering profession), the accreditation process exemptes candidates, possessing an accredited degree, of such examination.^[30] But some orders, as well as some other professional associations, only allow candidates possessing an accredited course to be admitted to examination but do not exempt them from this examination due to the large number of institutions offering degrees in the concerned field with very different teaching standards and curricula (e.g. Ordem dos Advogados for lawyers and the Ordem dos Técnicos Oficiais de Contas for accountants).

With secondary school credential

Students must have studied the subjects for which they are entering to be prepared for the entrance exams, but they are not required to have previously specialised in any specific area at the secondary school. Students sit for one or more entrance exams, Concurso nacional for public institutions or Concurso institucional for private institutions. In addition to passing entrance exams, students must fulfill particular prerequisites for some courses.

Enrollment is limited; each year the institution establishes the number of places available (numerus clausus). The exam scores count for the final evaluation, which includes the secondary school average marks. Then the students have to choose six institutions/courses they prefer to attend, in preferential order. The ones who reach the marks needed to attend the desired institution/course, given the number of vacancies, will be admitted. This means that the students could not be admitted at its first or second choice, but be admitted at the third or even sixth choice. In some cases, those entering polytechnic institutes with previous vocational training will receive institutional preference.

Admissions table

Portuguese ordinary admissions are based in a competitive system of numerus clausus, different programmes have different exams needed for admission which may vary from one institution to another.

Extraordinary exam process

After the approval of decree law Decreto-Lei 64/2006, de 21 de Março in 2006, even without a complete secondary school education, anyone 23 or older can apply to state-run higher learning institution through the Exame Extraordinário de Avaliação de Capacidade para Acesso ao Ensino Superior (extraordinary exam to assess the capacity to enter higher-level studies), also called the Ad-Hoc exam. Over 23 years old applicants are considered mature applicants and may be admitted without meeting the ENES examination requirement. In these cases, application is considered on the basis of one's educational background and work and life experience will be fully taken into account, as well as an interview. The process consists of the general Portuguese exam, an interview to evaluate motivation and CV, and additional written and/or oral exams specific to each school and course. Candidates approved go through a separate numerus clausus or enroll directly at the discretion of the school's board. As what happens with the Concurso Nacional through the Exames Nacionais do Ensino Secundário (ENES), the Extraordinary Exam Process for over-23 years old candidates is more demanding and has a much higher selectiveness in public universities than in the public polytechnics. Humanities and other non-mathematical-intensive fields have also much higher admission rates than classical university engineerings, economics or medicine. This implies that almost all new students admitted by this extraordinary process enter a polytechnic institution, private institution, or humanities programmes.

Inequalities

Most public university courses often demand much higher admission marks than most similar courses at the polytechnic institutes or private institutions. This has been a major statistical fact among the higher education subsystems in Portugal.^[2][6][37] However, it is not possible today to characterize precisely a course's quality level by its higher education subsystem (polytechnic or university) because some polytechnic courses demand high grades and have a better reputation and popularity than in the past, after many years of reforms and reorganization in the polytechnic subsystem. But in general, the majority of the most highly regarded degrees, noted for their selectiveness and popularity, are provided by some institutions of the university system, with many of the polytechnic system's institutions being often regarded as a second choice alternative to the major universities for a number of students. There was a historic connotation that polytechnic institutes were often considered the schools of last resort, because of their general low selectiveness (which was clearly substandard from the 1980s to the mid-2000s), lack of historical notability, and diminute number of highly distinguished alumni and professors, which some feel hurts their reputation.^[38] In parallel with the Bologna reform, two major regulatory initiatives have been implemented from the academic year 2005/06, namely: access rules have enforced minimum grades of 95/200 in the national access examinations for all candidates in every sector of higher education; and a minimum number of 10 students per degree programme has been required for public funding, with this limit to increase to 20 students in 2006/07.^[39] The measures provoked great alarm and concern among the polytechnic institutions who criticised the more rigorous requirements as "bad and elitist".^[40] However, specific field entrance exams that are required for admission to many institutions are notorious for their inconsistencies, with courses which for instance may traditionally require mathematics, physics or chemistry entrance exams, allowing non-related entrance exams to catch a large number of underachieving applicants who otherwise would not be admitted, and do not have a place at more selective institutions in the same field. For the other side, higher grades inside the higher education institutions were more frequent for those students of private, public polytechnic and some public university courses that were globally the worst pre-higher education applicants. This implied a long-lasting reputation of lower teaching standards and easier entrance requirements in many public polytechnic and private institutions, as well as in some public university departments, which seemed rather relaxed. A number of scandals, suspicions and affairs involving private higher education institutions (for example, major private universities like Universidade Moderna (1998), Universidade Independente (2007) and Universidade Internacional (2007), among others), and a general perception of many of those institutions as having a tendentially relaxed teaching style with less rigorous criteria, have contributed to their poor reputation which originated a state-run inspection of private higher education institutions in 2007.^[41][42] Many institutions did not provide degree programs of academic integrity comparable to those of traditional universities. Like in any other country in the world, this appears to be an injustice for thousands of others students admitted to more rigorous and selective institutions that will face the same competition in the labour market, where the graduation marks are often decisive. This has allowed other inequalities such as the future impossibility of obtaining a masters or doctoral degree for students with lower marks (usually less than 14, out of 20 for master's degree, or 16 out of 20 for doctorate), and the higher average completion time for graduation and subsequent entrance into the labour market, with different standards in so many heterogeneous institutions.^[43]

In the 2000s, there was a growing effort to define nonaccredited universities or accredited institutions which awarded nonaccredited degrees, as diploma mills, in order to raise awareness about the problem. In 2007, the State had planned to enforce in a near future more stringent rules for all kind of public and private degree-conferring institutions. Currently, after changes introduced by the Bologna process, master's degree programmes can be offered to any student who had completed the first study cycle (licenciatura) and enroll in the second study cycle (mestrado).^[6]

For instance, medicine is traditionally one of the most popular courses in Portugal, and therefore one of the most selective, with some of the highest rated secondary school top students competing with the best of the best for a place in a medicine course. Normally, a student who wants to attend the Medical School (Faculdade de Medicina) at one of the Portuguese public universities which exclusively offer this graduation course, has to get very high grades in the entrance exams (it may include exams in fields like chemistry, biology, and mathematics) and to have done an almost-brilliant secondary school course. Admission marks of the applicants admitted in medicine, are never less than 180 out of 200. Architecture, economics, a number of engineerings, dentistry, law, pharmacy, or veterinary medicine at most public universities, are, in general, another examples of courses which are traditionally the most selective or popular.^[44] In contrast with these, like in any other educational system in the world, there are many courses offered by private universities, polytechnic institutes, and public universities, where the entrance requirements are sharply below the average. There are also some courses with low or even no demand and condemned to be extinguished.^[6]

In the 1990s, the offer of law degrees in Portugal became widespread across the entire country through both public and private university institutions. By 2010, lower selectiveness and academic integrity levels, including in law schools previously known for its reputation and prestige, debased the average teaching of law in Portugal according to the head of the Ordem dos Advogados Marinho Pinto.^[35][36]

Employability

In Portugal, about 15% of the people with a degree are unemployed, and a larger proportion are underemployed.^[45][46] In 2008, the number of degree owners registered in the national network of job centers reached 60,000 (a registered graduate unemployment rate of nearly 8%).^[47]

After students graduate from a higher education institution, factors like the field of studies, the grade point average and the prestige of the teaching institution, are relatively important for getting a job. But most important is the current employment market.

Due to these factors, higher education courses with a higher employability rate include medicine (there is a very high demand for medical doctors across the whole country), some classic engineering specializations, and computer sciences.

Low employability is found among teaching, humanities and some social sciences fields of study, like history, geography, linguistics, philosophy, sociology; or to a lesser degree among the exact sciences and natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology or geology, when these courses are oriented towards a teaching career instead of a more technical or scientific research career.^[47]

Despite their generally high reputation, economics, law and architecture degrees, even from some of the most selective and prestigious schools, have had an increasingly low employability rate due to an excessive number of new graduates each year.

There are courses which used to have high or very high employability rates (at least during the 1990s) and currently are among the most precarious in terms of employment for new graduates. These include business administration, management, nursing and some health technician courses. The reduction of (a traditionally high) State expenditure allocated to job creation inside the public sector of the Portuguese economy since 2002–2003, in addition to the boom of the number of places offered to new students in those fields by an increasing number of private and public teaching institutions, disrupted supply and demand equilibrium.

Higher wages and better job conditions are usually offered by companies to the best fresh graduates of a number of highly reputed universities. Most Portuguese civil servants usually have better-than-average pay and benefits regardless of their personal educational quality.

An article was published by the Expresso dated 2004 which listed the most desirable graduates of universities and polytechnics by Portuguese companies in the fields of engineering, structural engineering, marketing, management, economics and finance.^[48] This non-scientific report used a survey made by some human resources recruiting firms, which means that the population surveyed comprised only the candidates who were seeking a job through those recruiting firms, and excluded the highly qualified candidates who were recruited directly by the companies, by other important recruiting firms, or were recruited by headhunters before graduation. Additionally, some graduates are recruited from local higher learning institutions through partnerships with local companies or other institutions, bypassing full and open competition.^{[49][50][51][52][53]}

World Bank research on human capital flight by country, reported in 2005 a rate of 20% of Portuguese graduates leaving the country for working abroad, one of the largest rates for countries with over 5 million inhabitants.^[54]

Underemployment

Underemployment among fresh and senior graduates has increased since the early 1990s. Among the degree owners with the highest rates of underemployment are those who earned degrees in teaching, psychology, philosophy, economics, business administration, management, technical accounting, sociology, short-cycle engineering (technical engineering), some non-traditional engineerings, law, journalism, languages, history, and related fields of study. Several thousand people in this situation, have part-time or full-time occupations in a range of unspecialized jobs for unskilled or marginally skilled workers.^[55]

Official state-managed ranking

The Portuguese Agência de Acreditação (state-managed Accreditation Agency) for higher education, and formally founded in 2007, will be responsible for the publication of the national ranking of higher education institutions and degrees.^[56]

The Times Higher Education Supplement

In 2007, according to The Times Higher Education Supplement (2007 QS World University Rankings, by QS – Quacquarelli Symonds), the University of Coimbra is ranked number 3 among the universities in the Portuguese-speaking countries (behind the University of São Paulo and the University of Campinas), and ranked 318 in the overall world rank. In 2006, according to The Times Higher Education Supplement (2006 QS World University Rankings, by QS – Quacquarelli Symonds), the University of Coimbra is ranked number 1 university in the Portuguese-speaking countries, and ranked 266 in the overall world rank.^[57][58][59]

Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan

In 2008, a Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan's ranking placed the University of Porto in the first position among the Portuguese universities by research output. The Ranking Iberoamericano de Instituciones de Investigación have placed the University of Porto in the 11th place by research output in Iberoamerican countries (Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela), and first in Portugal.^[60][61] In 2007, a Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan's ranking, placed the University of Porto in 459. It was the only Portuguese university in the top 500 according to the Taiwanese ranking.

Webometrics

Portuguese higher education institutions webometrics ranking, 2015 – Top 20 ranked according to indicators measuring web presence and impact.^[62]