"Portugal Now" launches 12 proposals to respond to 5 challenges
“Portugal Agora” launches 12 proposals to address 5 challenges. The platform identifies national-level challenges through 2030 and presents proposals to address them. The initiative is based on a focus on learning as a starting point and on placing human capital at the center of a vision for the 21st century.
Lisbon, February 20 – The “Portugal Agora” platform has identified five challenges to be addressed in Portugal by 2030 in the areas of education and skills development. To address these challenges—and in line with its goal of moving from strategy to action—it is launching 12 proposals as part of this initiative.
The challenges and proposals are being developed as part of the Aprender@PT project, launched in the last four-month period of 2023, which is based on a focus on learning as a starting point, rather than on the “education system,” which should be a consequence.
The initiative aims to identify measures that can accelerate this transformation in Portugal and place human capital at the center of a vision for the 21st century, as part of an agenda to be implemented in Portugal by the public, private, and social sectors, with a focus on cross-sectoral cooperation.
The “Portugal Agora” platform, which aims to exert influence and make an impact and is based on the premise that thinking about the country in the medium and long term, gathered input from national and international experts in these fields to develop the proposals and establish this agenda for the future.
“We believe that a strategic vision based on these five challenges clarifies the path forward for education in Portugal in the coming years. And that the 12 proposals outlined above will serve as solid steps along this path, aimed at achieving results and making an impact on the development of children, youth, and adults,”, says Carlos Sezões, president of the “Portugal Agora” platform.
“And we hope they will serve as an inspiration to those who can implement them—not only the government, its ministries, and the relevant public agencies, but also schools, universities, foundations, and local governments. In a spirit of collaboration and “teamwork” that we must increasingly promote in Portugal””. He adds.
12 Proposals for 5 Challenges in Education
- Focus on the key knowledge and skills needed to create value in your professional activities and in the labor markets of the future.
Here, the proposal is re-establish programs for acquiring professionally applicable skills for value-added industries, by investing in technical and professional skills focused on roles that cannot be replaced by AI, and by prioritizing basic training programs or scaling up professional retraining. Then, the promoting the teaching of behavioral and social skills, making the teaching and recognition of learning in these areas soft skills. By promoting the teaching of digital and computational skills and fostering, at various educational levels, an understanding of new technologies and their impact. This “computational thinking” will provide young people with higher levels of strategic and conceptual reasoning, enhanced problem-solving skills, and an awareness of the principles that—today and in the future—will form the basis for how virtually everything around us works.
- Develop and scale flexible pedagogical methodologies that leverage new technologies and enable individualized, effective learning pathways—and support better lifelong learning.
In this challenge, the proposal is to promotion of a project-based learning model, based on a national network of schools to scale up this initiative. Then, we need to make teaching and learning processes more flexible and tailored to individual needs by developing educational pilot projects in a hybrid format (in-person/distance learning) and incorporating the pedagogical use of AI.
- Redefine the role and responsibilities of teachers as facilitators of learning.
Here, the proposal involves a program to promote the the role of teachers, including a redefined set of competencies, their preparation for hybrid learning environments, the pedagogical use of generative AI, and greater flexibility in models, methodologies, and schedules. This presupposes a upskilling teachers at all levels of education with a background in technology.
- To highlight the role of schools in learning and social innovation, and in promoting citizenship and community involvement.
In this challenge, the proposal is to promotion of a new framework for school autonomy, assuming the generalization of curricular autonomy, the design of projects and training programs, enabling greater sociocultural alignment, along with greater capacity for innovation and community involvement. Families' freedom to choose a school would help bring these models to fruition.
- Keeping pace with ongoing technological disruption, creating constantly renewed digital literacy processes to ensure their sustainability - as well as the critical and ethical sense that is indispensable in the evolution of these areas.
Here, the proposal is based on creating spaces where students can experiment with new digital technologies, based on a School-Business-Academia concept, which serve as a new generation of innovation labs. At the same time, the creation of a Emerging Technologies Observatory to identify, in a forward-looking manner, various impacts on employability in order to support critical decisions.
About Portugal Agora: It is a project that aims to promote a vision for our country based on three dimensions (Attractiveness, Knowledge, Entrepreneurship), with the goal of facilitating the transition from strategy to action—generating concrete proposals for public policies or civil society initiatives. The project was developed by a group of citizens (more than 350 signatories, listed on the website www.portugalagora.com) who volunteered to create a platform for realizing this vision. Its goal is to consolidate a set of policy proposals that can help build an Attractive Portugal, a Knowledge-Based Portugal, and an Entrepreneurial Portugal, and to facilitate their dissemination and public discussion—it presented its first proposals in 2015 and launched a book in June 2017— https://www.wook.pt/livro/portugal-agora-carlos-sezoes/19683490 - which consolidates much of the work. Additional information: https://www.portugalagora.com/