1st year students keep the manuals but must return them the following year.

Students in the 1st cycle of basic education are exempt from returning textbooks at the end of this academic year, but must return them “in the next academic year.”

The decision is contained in the diploma establishing the rules for the execution of the state budget for this year (Decree-Law No. 17/2024), which includes two articles concerning the free textbook program in force since 2016.

For reasons of financial sustainability, the program, aimed at public school students, involves the reuse of textbooks, a practice that was suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, so that students can recover or build on knowledge acquired in previous years.

At the end of last school year, the Ministry of Education decided to revive a plan to return textbooks, but the move was criticized by families of younger children and school principals, who said they were informed too late.

This year, all “students of the 1st cycle of basic education are exempt from submitting textbooks at the end of the school year,” according to the diploma published on January 29.

However, families must return them “in the next school year,” according to the diploma, which added that all 1st cycle public school students will receive “new school books” in September 2024.

In September 2023, Minister João Costa announced an end to the return of textbooks for 1st cycle students, citing low levels of reuse.

The free textbook program began in the 2016/2017 school year for younger students and gradually expanded to more students.

Since 2019, nearly a million children and young people from grades 1 to 12 have received free school books.

The books are provided through vouchers issued on the digital platform, with carers responsible “for any loss or damage to the physical support manual received”, according to the diploma released late last month.

However, the order states that families will not be penalized if it is “wear and tear resulting from normal, reasonable and proper use, taking into account the type of use and discipline for which they were intended, the condition in which they were received by the student, the age student and other subjective and objective circumstances that make this same responsibility unfulfillable.”

The financial sustainability of this project is also based on the reuse of manuals, auditors of the Court of Auditors (TdC) warned in the various assessments they carried out on the project.