Polytechnic (Portugal)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Polytechnic is one of the two sub-systems of

doctor's degrees
.

Polytechnic education focuses on

educators. On the other hand, polytechnics do not have programs in law, medicine, architecture, economics and other subjects reserved for the university institutions.

The polytechnics emerged in the 1980s, through the transformation of already existing non-university higher education schools of teachers and agriculture, at the same time that entirely new schools in other fields were also being built. Later, other higher education schools, like the higher institutes of engineering, accounting and administration, the higher schools of nursery, nursing schools and the Nautical School, were also integrated in the polytechnic education.

Organization

The polytechnic higher education is mostly provided by polytechnic institutes (institutos politécnicos) that can be public or private. The polytechnic institutes are federations of polytechnic schools, with each school focusing on one or several related subjects areas. These schools are usually named "higher schools" (escolas superiores), although some are named "higher institutes" (institutos superiores). There are also some independent polytechnic schools (not integrated in polytechnic institutes or in other larger institutions) and polytechnic schools that are integrated in universities (despite this, providing polytechnic and not university education).

There are fifteen public polytechnic institutes in Portugal. Each of these cover a region of responsibility that usually corresponds to the area of a district in Portugal. The residents in the regions of each institute have priority access to the programs of their respective polytechnics. Also, the programs offered by the polytechnics usually take their respective regions in consideration, focusing in the specific economic, technical and social needs of the local communities. Because of these features, the polytechnic institutes can be compared to community colleges in the United States.

The polytechnic institutes usually have multiple campus, each one having installed one or more of their schools.

History

There are fifteen state-run polytechnical institutes (the polytechnics) in

Bologna process
, including a wider budget, proper research activities and a much larger number of doctorates among the teaching staff. Doctorate degrees (3rd cycle degrees) and extensive independent fundamental research work are still exclusive competences of the universities. However, since the Bologna Process (2006/2007) and despite having fewer resources than their university-counterparts, a growing number of Portuguese polytechnical institutions have also established and expanded their own research facilities.

Polytechnic Schools (Escolas Politécnicas) were created in the 19th century in

Bologna process, the Portuguese polytechnic institutes started to be considered as de facto technical universities in a number of fields, with little formal difference between their 1st and 2nd cycle degrees and those awarded by the classic full chartered universities (polytechnics do not have competences to award 3rd cycle doctorate degrees and, in general, they don't develop fundamental research work). The polytechnical institutes are organized into confederations of autonomous polytechnic higher education units comprising a wide range of fields from engineering or technologies to education to accountancy to agriculture (called institutes and schools). Since the creation of the first polytechnical institutes that started in the late 1970s, to 1999 after new legislation has been approved for these institutions, the polytechnics were only allowed to offer a three-year bachelor degree (bacharelato). In opposition, the Portuguese universities conferred 4 to 6 years major bachelor degrees, known in many countries as licentiate degree (licenciatura). The universities were also the only institutions awarding masters and doctoral degrees in Portugal to graduated people having the licenciatura diploma conferred exclusively in the universities. In general, the polytechnic system has been often regarded as a second choice alternative to the university for a large number of students. There was a historic connotation of the Portuguese polytechnical institutes as the schools of last resort, because of their general low selectiveness (which was clearly substandard from the 1980s to the mid-2000s), lack of historical notability, and diminute number of highly distinguished alumni and professors, which some feel hurts their reputation.[2]
However, the changes introduced by the Bologna Process in Portuguese higher education created a more uniform and homogeneous higher educational system, at least in the public university and polytechnical institutions, which within a decade (1997–2007) became more equal, as far as is concerned with the formal attribution of academic degrees.

According to studies and reports, in the 1990s and 2000s, a fast growth and proliferation of private higher education and state-run polytechnical institutions with lower educational standards and ambiguous academic integrity, was responsible for unnecessary and uneconomic allocation of resources with no adequate quality output in terms of both new highly qualified graduates and research.[3] Since the creation of the Portuguese higher education polytechnical system, admission to public university programmes has been often more demanding and selective than to their equivalent in public polytechnics. Many specific university institutions and degrees have also been regarded as more prestigious and reputed than their peers from the polytechnic system.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ (in Portuguese) Andrea Trindade, “Ausência de regras favorece a concorrência desqualificada”, "O facto de cada instituição poder definir regras próprias de ingresso para os seus cursos é, no entender de Seabra Santos, mais um factor de «concorrência desqualificada e de nivelamento por baixo»: Uma escola de Engenharia, por exemplo, pode decidir que os seus estudantes não precisam de Matemática para entrar.", Diário de Coimbra (February 2, 2009)
  2. Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra
    (in Portuguese)
  3. (January 8, 2007)
  4. ^ (in Portuguese) Andrea Trindade, “Ausência de regras favorece a concorrência desqualificada”, "O facto de cada instituição poder definir regras próprias de ingresso para os seus cursos é, no entender de Seabra Santos, mais um factor de «concorrência desqualificada e de nivelamento por baixo»: Uma escola de Engenharia, por exemplo, pode decidir que os seus estudantes não precisam de Matemática para entrar.", Diário de Coimbra (February 2, 2009)
  5. ^ (in Portuguese) Cláudia Valadas Urbano, A candidatura ao ensino superior politécnico: Escolha ou recurso? Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine

See also