Make education a priority
The difficulty in hiring non-teaching staff, monitoring children with special educational needs, discussing transfers of competencies in the area of education, school transport, the condition of school facilities and equipment and financial transfers from the central administration to the municipalities are some of the issues addressed, from a metropolitan perspective, by the AML and its municipalities at the regular meetings of the metropolitan education group.
The analysis of school years in the municipalities of the Lisbon metropolitan area, the placement of teachers, enrollment, and the provision of school meals are examples of other topics that are usually covered.
Given the complexity of the issues addressed, the municipalities regularly organize smaller working groups to discuss, deepen and agree on joint positions on issues related to this area.
Qualification Needs Anticipation System (SANQ)
It is a system for diagnosing qualification needs and indicating priority areas and career paths, which makes it possible to establish guidelines for defining the training network and updating the National Qualifications Catalog.
Its main objectives are the production of a basic macro diagnosis (updated every 3 years) on the economic and labour market dynamics that influence the demand for qualifications; the production of recommendations and proposal of annual guidelines for the prioritization of qualifications that constitute the potential training offer, applicable in the planning of the network of offers at the beginning of each training cycle; identifying potential future qualifications and the need to adjust existing ones; and deepening the diagnosis at regional level within the framework of the Metropolitan Areas (MA) and Intermunicipal Communities (CIM) and bringing together regional players to present a joint proposal for a local network of educational and training provision.
AML is responsible for developing the regional in-depth module, in accordance with the guidelines defined by the National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Education.
The regional in-depth study allows for a specific approach to the regional and sub-regional context, working with the information generated by the basic diagnosis, starting with each municipality.
Updating the SANQ regional in-depth study will support the process of planning and coordinating the network of level 4 dual-certification vocational training courses in the Lisbon metropolitan area, by identifying a matrix of relevant qualifications and improving the process of coordinating the network of level 4 training offers.
This update will make it possible to identify trends and priorities for intermediate-level qualifications, obtain up-to-date information on the dynamics of job supply and demand, identify investments expected to have an impact on job creation in the region, update the regional diagnosis in the socio-demographic, education-training, professions and employment fields, and also characterize the installed capacity of schools, in terms of human and material resources and the schools' organizational and pedagogical practices.
PISA for Schools
The OECD's PISA program conducts a triennial assessment of 15-year-old students around the world, evaluating the extent to which 15-year-old students, nearing the end of compulsory schooling, have acquired the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in modern societies. The assessment focuses on reading, mathematics and science skills.
The assessment doesn't just look at whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how students can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply that knowledge in unfamiliar contexts, both in and out of school.
PISA's main objectives are to empower school leaders and teachers by providing them with evidence-based analyses of their students' performance, to help schools measure the main components of 21st century skills, and to promote global peer learning opportunities between school leaders and teachers, achieved through the design of a series of post-assessment activities.
As part of this project, it is planned to carry out two regional sample studies in 2023/2024 and 2025/2026 and to carry out actions with school groups and municipalities to analyze and interpret the results and define strategies to promote learning.