Doctorates at polytechnics, difficulties in accessing student accommodation and the legal regime of Higher Education institutions were also on the agenda at a meeting between the Prime Minister and the Coordinating Council of Higher Polytechnic Institutes.
The Coordinating Council of Higher Polytechnic Institutes (CCISP) had an official meeting this Tuesday morning with the Prime Minister, António Costa, a meeting also attended by the Minister of Science and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, and a representation of the Federation National Association of Polytechnic Higher Education Students (FNAEESP). The occasion served to highlight the circumstance that the diploma will soon come into force – already enacted by the President of the Republic and today signed by the Prime Minister -, which will allow polytechnic institutes to award doctorates and to be renamed “Polytechnic University”, to internationalize.
This legislative change was strongly promoted by the Citizens’ Legislative Initiative “Valuation of polytechnic education nationally and Internationally”, which required changing the designation of Polytechnic Institutes to Polytechnic Universities, as well as the legal possibility of granting a doctor’s degree, which had the strong support of municipalities and the business fabric, and which obtained, in June 2022, unanimous approval from the deputies of the Assembly of the Republic.
This Tuesday’s meeting was used to discuss the main themes that permeate higher education today, with concerns about student accommodation at the top of the agenda, this is at a time when underlined by António Costa, it is widely recognized as a “very large” imbalance in access to housing by students, to the point of considering this the “biggest barrier to access to higher education”.
For the CCISP, the demand for more beds for students in the housing market “is a need that needs an urgent response on the ground”, so that polytechnics can not only express their social aspect but also “provide quality education”, adjusted to the real needs of companies, in the regions of the country, “as it has done over the last few decades”. This is known as the role of Polytechnic Higher Education students as an engine for the development of demographically depressed regions, contributing to the settling of more people in these territories.
To this end, the prime minister asserted that the funds for the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and those for the State Budget will be reinforced, to respond to inflation and to allow almost doubling the number of beds available in education higher and 70% increase in polytechnics by the end of 2026.
On the table was also the revision of the legal regime of Higher Education institutions, which, despite the “complexity of the process”, António Costa guaranteed a conclusion by the end of 2024, in the sense of improving and stabilizing the financing systems of Higher Education Higher.
For the CCISP, the ongoing changes are fundamental for Polytechnic Higher Education, not only to consolidate the successful path of more than 40 years of activity, but also to attract more foreign investment to the area of Innovation and Development, but also international talent, which chooses our country to continue their work in a business application aspect.
The opportunity also served for the CCISP to underline the contribution of polytechnics to strengthening qualification and lifelong training – whether young people or adults – and to improving people’s skills, as is the example of the Impulso program (Youth and Adults ), approved in all Polytechnics within the scope of the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan, without forgetting the ongoing digitization and sustainability programs.
About CCISP:
The Coordinating Council of Higher Polytechnic Institutes is a collegiate body, with various powers, of joint representation of public polytechnic higher education establishments. All public higher polytechnic institutes are part of it, as well as non-integrated higher schools. The universities of the Azores, Algarve, Aveiro, Évora, and Madeira also have a seat on the CCISP. In addition to the joint representation of its members, its main competence is to issue opinions and positions on matters related to higher education.
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