21 basic education courses for teacher training have exhausted almost a thousand places available in the first stage of the national competition for access to higher education, the results of which were made public this Sunday.
According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI), 997 people who received basic education degrees filled all the vacancies.
Compared with last year, when there were still places to be filled following the first stage, the number of people accepted to these courses, which are the basis for teacher training, has increased by 8%.
The highest average admission score was at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, where the last candidate was admitted with 15.6 points, and the lowest was at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, with 11.3 points.
“Over the past three years, the number of undergraduate students has increased by 56.3%, indicating growing student interest in these courses,” MECI said in a statement.
Attracting students to teacher training courses has been one of the challenges in recent years in responding to the shortage of teachers in schools, particularly in the regions of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, Alentejo and Algarve, where the shortage is even greater.
Currently, 328 students have entered universities in these regions, but it is the universities in the North that continue to train the majority of future teachers, and this year almost 500 new students have entered.
From this year, young people will have more incentive to continue these studies after the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, announced the awarding of 2,000 scholarships to students applying for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in pedagogical sciences and teaching.
Almost 50,000 students were admitted to the first stage of the national competition for access to higher education, an increase compared to last year, with only 14.3% of candidates not taking part.
The results of the first stage of the competition are available on the website of the Directorate General of Higher Education (http://www.dges.gov.pt) from 00:00 on Sunday, and interested students have the opportunity from Monday until September 4 to apply for the 2nd stage.
The approximately five thousand vacancies remaining after Phase 1 will now be available for Phase 2, to which must be added vacancies that were filled but for which students did not enrol or register and therefore become available again.