The majority of Azores residents are in grade 6 or below, according to the archipelago’s regional education secretary, noting that at the national level, half of residents are in grade 9 or above.
“While in the rest of the country most Portuguese qualifications are at 3rd cycle level or above – 50% of Portuguese in the rest of the country have 3rd cycle qualifications (Year 9) or above – in the Azores we are with exactly the opposite. In the Azores, most of the Azorean population still only has qualifications up to the 2nd cycle of basic education (6th year),” Sofia Ribeiro said in an interview with Lusa.
This is one of the data from a study carried out as part of the Education Strategy of the Azores 2030, which will be presented on Thursday in Angra do Heroísmo, explained the regional secretary of education, culture and sports PSD/CDS-PP. / Head of PPM.
The regional study also found a link between residents’ qualifications and a municipality’s gross domestic product (GDP): “There is a clear correlation in which municipalities with the highest qualifications of their residents are wealthier municipalities,” Sofia said. Ribeiro.
Ponta Delgada (São Miguel Island), Angra do Heroísmo (Terceira), Horta (Faial) and Vila do Porto (Santa Maria) are the Azores municipalities where the GDP is the highest, as is the level of education of their residents.
At the bottom of the table are the remaining five municipalities of the island of São Miguel (Ribeira Grande, Lagoa, Vila Franca do Campo, Povoação and Nordeste), where populations with low levels of education live.
Regarding the reasons for the low level of education of a large part of the Azoreans, the regional secretary recalled other studies that indicate “that there is an influence of family traditions on the assessment of work and study”: “There is an almost traditional issue that needs to be changed.”
The regional work “analyzes the qualifications of Azoreans by municipality”, comparing them with each other and with those of the country as a whole, the continent and Madeira.
The data now released is in line with Pordata’s 2023 Portrait of the Azores, which showed that 63% of the Azores population aged 16 to 89 had no secondary education, while nationally this number had fallen to 50%.
When analyzing the population with higher education, the rate in the Azores was 16%, which is lower than the national average of 24%.
When asked about a possible link between poverty rates and early school completion in the Azores, Sofia Ribeiro said it was impossible to establish the link “with technical precision” because the data was not provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
According to the governor, the Education Strategy will also make it possible to identify students who left school early, that is, those who did not enroll without completing the 12th grade.
“We have no history. This is work that was done for the first time at the beginning of this academic year. From now on we will build this history,” he noted.
The regional secretary estimates that the implementation of the strategy will begin in 2024 after the integration of collected contributions.
According to INE, in 2023 the early withdrawal rate from education and training in the Azores reached 21.7%, almost three times higher than the national average (8%).