Government “refuses” to say when results of national exams will be ready for schools to display

The Portuguese government has refused to commit to a specific time for publishing this year’s secondary school national exam results – leaving schools in a state of complete bewilderment.

Speaking after Friday’s Cabinet meeting, Presidency Minister António Leitão Amaro said he would not “set time targets” for the release of the results, despite confirming the government still expected schools to publish the grades before the end of the day.

“I am not going to establish time targets,” he said, noting that in previous years exam results had also been released outside normal school office hours.

Earlier on Friday, Education Minister Fernando Alexandre told parliament that all national secondary school exams had now been marked, clearing the way for the National Examination Board (JNE) to validate the results and distribute the grades for more than 300,000 exam papers taken by 11th and 12th-grade students.

Leitão Amaro said the “essential” part of the process has been completed, with the remaining steps involving formal approval by the JNE, transmission of the results to schools, de-anonymisation of exam scripts and publication of the final lists.

“We are convinced there are conditions for the grades to reach schools in time for them to publish the results. If the JNE completes its work within the conditions it has, today’s deadline will be met,” he said.

The minister acknowledged the disruption caused by this year’s exam marking process and thanked teachers, saying the “vast majority” had made “an enormous effort” to ensure students received their results.

However, schools were still waiting for the files containing the final grades well into the afternoon.

Filinto Lima, president of the National Association of Public School Group Directors, urged authorities to send the results without further delay, warning that school administrative offices could not remain on standby indefinitely.

“Will we publish the results at 10 p.m., 5 p.m. or 8 p.m.? We simply don’t know because nobody has told us,” Lima said. “Across Portugal’s 801 school groups, headteachers, examination offices, administrative staff and teachers called in to help are all waiting with their arms folded.”

The uncertainty follows weeks of disruption to this year’s national examinations, the first to be marked through a fully digital system. Technical failures repeatedly affected the platform used by teachers, forcing the Education Ministry to postpone deadlines and prompting criticism from unions, parents and opposition parties.

FENPROF, the largest teachers union, has today lodged a judicial complaint over the whole process, alleging criminal responsibility, but the government has continually denied ‘chaos’ – a word now that many will be examining carefully: “when is a complete shambles not chaos?”

Leitão Amaro, meantime, was also questioned about the government’s decision to pay overtime to teachers who spent recent weeks marking the exams.

Asked why the announcement had been made by PSD spokesman Sebastião Bugalho rather than the government, the minister insisted no new measure had been unveiled.

“The basis for this is the law,” he said. “The PSD spokesman did not announce any new measure. He simply conveyed what was common sense: that, in this case, the law would be applied.”

Bugalho announced last Saturday that teachers marking the exams would receive overtime pay in recognition of what he described as their “extraordinary effort” in overcoming the difficulties caused by the troubled rollout of the new digital marking system.

A Euro MP, the announcement was seen as sadly comical, bearing in mind it was an ‘announcement’ of something that happens naturally – and from a source that was not part of the government. But none of this can be put down to ‘chaos’: it was the AD government ‘at work’.

Source material: noticiasaominuto