About 40 schools were checked for overestimation. The Seven must “restore the legitimacy” of the assigned ratings

The General Inspectorate for Education and Science (IGEC) this year reviewed 39 schools where student grades were found to be excessive, recommending that seven schools “immediately restore the legitimacy” of their grades.

Following a study released in January by the Directorate-General for Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC) that found several schools where their grades seemed excessive, IGEC decided to review 39 schools.

Inspector General for Education and Science (DGEC) Luis Capela said on Tuesday that the operation took place between February and March at 37 cooperative and private institutions and two public schools.

“In seven (schools) we had to recommend immediate reinstatement of legality because there were criteria that were not clearly defined,” Luis Capela explained during an event in Lisbon that released a DGEEC study that warned of possible inflation. grades at many schools based on internal classifications assigned between 2017/2018 and 2021/2022.

According to the IGEC Inspector General, 39 selected schools had a first visit that took place in January and February of this year, and “recommendations were made in all to improve the criteria”, but in seven schools, IGEC felt that higher rates were needed.

An analysis of the internal ratings of students over several years and the relationship of these results with the grades obtained in state exams made it possible to identify educational institutions in which there is a repeated practice of overestimating grades.

Since 2019, the review by IGEC teams has already resulted in approximately 85 disciplinary proceedings with sanctions.

“It is important that data be transformed into information and information into action,” said Education Minister Joao Costa.

“In a universe of more than 400 public schools, there are four” with problems in grading, and “in a universe of private schools, which is four times smaller, the number of schools with deviant behavior is ten times more,” the minister lamented. .

In one of the schools in question, “given the criteria”, “the school’s evaluation scale was from 0 to 22, not from zero to 20,” the minister added, saying that “the sanctions regime for private schools is being reviewed.”

One of the shortcomings of the current regime is the fact that banknote inflation is not yet a crime and therefore there is no system of sanctions.

More than 1.17 million students enrolled in more than 5,000 schools have been updated on the Infoescolas platform since Tuesday, DGEEC CEO Nuno Neto Rodriguez said.

Nuno Neto Rodriguez presented Infoescolas’ ten major innovations, ranging from student evolution data by nationality to turning the fairness indicator into a standalone graph.

In addition to Infoescolas, the platform also has “Infocursos” about higher education courses, which Nuno Neto Rodriguez says will be updated in the coming weeks.

During the meeting, researcher Isabelle Flores of ISCTE proposed the creation of a new equity measure that compares students with school social support to those who do not. idea”.

Luis Catela Nunez of Nova SBE criticized the lack of research on the impact of the pandemic on learning, noting that this work has already been done in several countries: “We need to know where we are,” he said.

In response, the Minister recalled the studies carried out during the pandemic and announced that a second diagnostic study on the impact of training would be published soon.