High school graduation rules applied during the pandemic remain in effect this year

According to the diploma, published today in Diário da República, the temporary rules for access to higher education and completion of secondary education applied during the pandemic for students of sciences and humanities remain in force this year.

The retention of the temporary rules that came into effect during the covid-19 pandemic has already been announced by Education Ministers Joao Costa and Higher Education Minister Elvira Fortunato, who justified the decision as necessary to ensure predictability for students graduating from high school.

Thus, this year, the national final examinations will again serve only as entrance examinations to higher education “without prejudice to their use for the purpose of approval and conclusion, as well as for the improvement of previously obtained classification”, according to the exceptional and temporary measures defined in Decree-Law 22/2023 published today.

Examinations taken by boarding students do not count toward assessment, subject approval, or high school graduation, but serve only to access higher education.

In this sense, students will only take exams in those subjects that are necessary to apply for higher education, or if they intend to improve the grade they have already taken or improve their internal grade (a grade awarded by the school teacher during the year). ) in order to be able to enter higher education institutions with a higher GPA.

The diploma explains that the rules for conducting examinations to improve the final classification in a discipline are subject to regulation in the Regulations on Tests and Exams.

Self-proclaimed students, which include those who followed the individual and home study regimen, “take attendance equivalency tests, which are replaced by national final exams in the disciplines in which this offer is available,” according to the diploma, published today in the Republic Diary. .

The secondary school assessment and completion model, as well as access to higher education, were subject to temporary measures in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing population lockdowns and distance learning exacerbating inequalities in access to education.

The government has created “Plano 21/23 Escola+” to try to restore lost learning, but “there are consequences” that continue to “condition the quality of teaching and student performance/achievement in national final exams,” it said. diploma, which comes into force on Tuesday.

However, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Higher Education introduced new rules for assessment and access to higher education this year, which will come into force in stages and will not apply to students who are now 12 years old.

Among the innovations is the fact that all students must pass three national exams, Portuguese is compulsory and the other two are chosen by the students, and that for higher education admissions the national exams now have a minimum weight of 45%.

The new model applies in full to students entering 10th grade in September. For them, different disciplines will have different weights on average depending on whether they are three-year, two-year or just one-year disciplines.