Citizenship Education in Portugal

OFFICIAL POLICIES

In the seventies Portugal lived a pioneering experience by joining the most recent wave of democratic transitions with the 1974 revolution putting an end to the dictatorship and colonial regime.

The Comprehensive Law on the Education System, approved in 1986, sets out the right of every Portuguese citizen to education and culture and the State´s duty to promote democracy in education as the key feature of equality of opportunity.

After the Curricular Reform (1989) and recently with the revision and reorganisation of basic education (2001), citizenship became the multidimensional key and broad concept related to global dimensions: - Democracy - Social Cohesion - Diversity - Interculturality - Environmental Sustainability - Human Rights - Equity

Thus, education for citizenship is considered: -A high priority of all educational, training, and cultural policies; - An essential and transversal component of formal and non-formal contexts; - One of the main pillars of the construction of a “school of citizens” based on the construction of a new paradigm life-long learning and education for all.

-Decree-Laws n. 6/2001: dated 18th of January, enshrines the curricular reorganisation of basic education lays down the guiding principles for the organisation and curricular management of basic education.

II - ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM

In reorganising the basic education curriculum, the inclusion of three new non-disciplinary curricular areas are particularly relevant: -In all cycles of basic education, Education for Citizenship and the use of the Information and Communication Technologies are areas of learning that affect all disciplines and areas of the curriculum. -Curricular designs for the three cycles of basic education include disciplinary and non- disciplinary area.

The following are non-disciplinary areas:

- a) Project area- the design, implementation and assessment of projects, by co-ordinating the knowledge of different curricular areas to deal with problems or topics for research or intervention, depending on the needs and interests of pupils;

- b) Monitored study- the acquisition of skills allowing pupils to acquire study and working methods and to encourage the development of attitudes and capabilities promoting ever more autonomy in learning;

- c) Civic training for developing education for citizenship in awakening a civic awareness in pupils as a fundamental element in the process of training responsible citizens, who will be critical, active and ready to intervene. By using an interchange of experiences witnessed by pupils and their individual and collective participation in the life of the class, the school and the community.

The project areas and monitored study aim to work with the information and communication technologies, which will be geared to giving pupils basic training and support in all areas and disciplines of the curriculum, and in which they should have the essential skills to express themselves.

In current curricular plans for basic education, no changes have been made to the 1st and 2nd cycles in the disciplinary areas and disciplines making up the curriculum3. In the 3rd cycle, changes are related to the introduction of a second foreign language for all pupils, the continuity of disciplines throughout the cycle and a wider range of options for Artistic Education the school should provide.

As part of their educational project, and depending on their resources, schools also provide pupils with activities that enhance the curriculum, generally in the fields of sports, science and technology.

Citizen Education, which is of transversal nature, is an essential component of the school curriculum in various educational cycles. Its main purpose is to contribute towards the development of the student's civic conscience.

This curricular component is neither the teacher's responsibility nor the responsibility of a specific discipline. It embraces all areas of knowledge taught in schools.

Therefore, citizenship education is only possible if a strategic plan is established. It must include all the actions that should be developed in the many areas and subjects of the school curriculum:

Health, sex, street, or environmental education, among others, should be incorporated either in the work carried out in non curricular areas as well as in context of the different disciplines.