Portugal minister for state reform defends ‘digital transition’; “reform requires trial and error”

In yet another of those ‘speeches’ that seem to dig an even larger hole for the AD government to disappear into, Portugal’s Minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Matias, has defended the digital transition agenda in the wake of the national exam marking crisis, arguing that technological change inevitably involves “trial and error”.

Ministers are determined to learn from mistakes, rather than abandon reform, said the minister who is pushing for a national strategy to attract data centers, enabling Portugal to become a ‘global AI power’.

His affirmations suggest the executive still hasn’t understood that what they might see as a process of trial and error is also a critical moment in the lives of thousands of school leavers.

The slightest of mistakes in exam marking/ grading could mean the difference between a pupil getting into a good university, or being stuck with choosing between mediocre polytechnics.

This is the nub of the issue. But minister Matias appears oblivious to these potential collateral damages:

“Digital transition has costs, and digital transition has risks,” he told reporters today, when asked about the problems that have plagued this year’s national secondary school exams. “Throughout the history of digital transformation there have been countless examples of trial and error.

“We are willing to go through this process of trial and error (…) What we are not willing to do is go backwards…

“What we are not prepared to do is leave anyone behind,” he then added. “We are prepared to move forward, learn from what does not go well and improve in the future. That is the only way we evolve.”

These comments came as the Education Ministry continued to defend its rollout of digital marking for handwritten secondary school exams despite weeks of technical failures, platform outages, missing scripts and widespread criticism from teachers, parents and opposition parties.

Earlier today, Education Minister Fernando Alexandre said 92% of more than 300,000 exam papers had been marked, insisting students will receive their results on July 17 as planned. However, teachers’ movement Missão Escola Pública argues it is “impossible” to guarantee rigorous marking within the compressed timetable because of the volume of work assigned over the weekend.

Minister Matias however appears to be focusing on the horizon. “We can carry out pilot projects, experiment, test and fail. And we will fail. Who has never failed? But failing does not mean going backwards. Failing does not mean giving up,” he repeated.

His remarks were made during the presentation of a €1.92 million digital urban management platform for the Coimbra Intermunicipal Community, funded through Portugal’s Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR).

CIMRC president Helena Teodósio described the platform as “a new chapter” in territorial management, saying it would integrate real-time data from sensors, municipal systems, public infrastructure and citizens into a single technological platform to support decision-making.

The system is expected to assist local authorities in areas including water management, waste collection, energy, transport and irrigation of public green spaces.

Again, this is all potentially marvellous, but in the event of ‘an error’, no one’s future will be put at risk. And that is where all the brave words about ‘trial and error’, progress and evolution, become meaningless. There can be no error when it comes to young people’s exam responses, stress both teachers and parents – which is why the latter have drawn up a petition to have the whole sorry digital marking process annulled this year, so that their children are not part of an experiment that is open to trial and error.

Source material: LUSA