The evaluation of the education system is carried out by several entities, and their input and object of assessment very diverse.
The National Council of Education and the Ministry of Education’s departments which, in terms of their respective organic law, have competences to carry out evaluations of the education system, are integrated into the organic structure of the evaluation system.
As regards the evaluation system, the National Council of Education has the competence to issue opinions, statements of opinions and recommendations and it is its special duty to make an appreciation of:
- The rules governing the self-evaluation process;
- the annual plan comprising external evaluation activity;
- the outcomes of both in-house and external evaluation processes.
The National Council of Education may request the Ministry of Education to hand over all the information considered necessary as well as recommend that the Ministry resort to using particular evaluation processes (Law no. 31/2002, 20th December).
The Ministry of Education Departments are responsible for planning, coordinating and defining processes, applying and improving the national educational system’s evaluation, identifying the data to be obtained, and analysing and following through with data-gathering systems and processes.
The evaluation of the educational system as well as of the schools, currently falls to the following departments: the General Inspectorate of Education and Science (IGEC), the Directorate General of Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC), and the Institute of Educational Assessment (IAVE, I.P.) (Decree-Law no. 125/2011, 29th December).
The Inspectorate-General of Education and Science (IGEC) has the mission of ensuring the legality and conformity of the actions perpetrated by all the bodies, services and institutions of the governance areas of Education and Science, Technology and Higher Education, as well as to contribute to the quality of the education system in its whole (Pre-school, Basic, Secondary and Higher Education), integrating special modalities of education, extra-school education and science and technology.
It pursues these tasks namely through control, auditing, follow-up and assessment actions, proposing measures that aim at improving the education system and participating in the external evaluation of Basic and Secondary Education schools process and in the activities related to this process.
This activity identify strong points as well as areas to improve in each school, thus contributing to the design of school’s improvement plans (Regulatory Decree no. 15/2012, 27th January).
The Directorate-General of Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC) has the mission of ensuring the production and analysis of educational statistical data supporting the design of policies and strategic planning and to monitor and evaluate the global outcomes obtained by the education system (Regulatory Decree no 13/2012, 20th January).
The Institute of Educational Assessment (IAVE) has, in the scope of the pedagogic component, the mission of “planning, coordinating, drawing up, validating, applying and supervising the instruments of the external evaluation of learning” (Decree-Law no. 102/2013, 25th July).
The departments and other offices of the Ministry of Education provide written reports with both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the education system, as well as three-year report providing a diagnosis of the education system and a prospective study on it.
The conclusions of the evaluation shall underpin proposals on, for example:
- The organization of the education system;
- the curricular structure;
- initial and in-service training of teachers;
- autonomy of schools;
- diversified means for school support;
- network of schools;
- students’ evaluation system.
Assessment in Higher Education includes internal quality assurance, external quality assurance and international evaluation at different levels.
Internal quality assurance is conducted by the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) according to their own regulations in the framework of institutional autonomy. HEIs have their own internal quality assurance systems more or less developed which must include teachers’ evaluation.
The Portuguese Agency of Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education – A3ES – is responsible for the external quality assurance which includes the accreditation of all programmes and the audit of the internal quality assurance systems. The Agency carries out other tasks and has a research and development department.