By: SUZY TURNER
THE MINISTRY of Education wants to simplify the rules of registration into primary basic and secondary schools in Portugal.
The secretary of State for Education, Valter Lemos, has approved the changes allowing parents to choose which schools to register their child at. This gives them a choice as to whether they go to school near their home or close to where they work.
The new and improved legislation is currently awaiting publication in the Diário da República. One of the main alterations is that if there is no room for a student to attend a particular school, he can choose up to five other establishments. This rule is, however, exclusively for primary school pupils.
Choice
Giving parents a better choice of schools is one way of dealing with timing difficulties. Parents can now clearly state the schools, in order of preference, they would prefer their child to attend.
Vacancies are filled according to priority. Children with special educational needs, for instance, are given first choice. Those who attended the previous school year come next, followed by those that went to the same establishment’s pre-school as are those with siblings already registered there. Only after all these spaces have been filled and there are still spaces available are parents able to register their children there.
If there are difficulties in placing a pupil in the schools of choice, the last school on the list is forced to find a solution, along with collaboration from the Direcção Regional da Educação. “The priority is putting that child in school”, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education.
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