Nothing broke. Nothing failed. The data speaks for itself.
Em Portugal, a pandemia transformou uma medida de emergência numa proposta de reforma estrutural: o ministro da Educação João Costa defende que os exames nacionais do ensino secundário se tornem permanentemente opcionais, servindo apenas como porta de entrada para o ensino superior. O que nasceu da necessidade revelou, segundo o ministro, uma verdade mais funda — que a avaliação obrigatória nem sempre é sinónimo de aprendizagem garantida. A discussão que agora se abre não é apenas técnica; é uma interrogação sobre o que a escola deve exigir, e a quem.
- Uma medida pensada para durar meses pode agora reconfigurar permanentemente o percurso escolar de milhares de jovens portugueses.
- Os dados da pandemia tornaram-se o argumento central do ministro: quase 50 mil alunos acederam ao ensino superior sem que o sistema tivesse colapsado.
- A tensão entre flexibilidade pedagógica e equidade no acesso à universidade mantém a decisão final suspensa entre dois ministérios.
- Os exames do 9.º ano regressam ao seu peso tradicional nas notas, enquanto as regras para o secundário continuam por definir.
- Medidas de discriminação positiva — quotas para alunos de territórios prioritários e vias especiais para o ensino profissional — surgem como contrapeso à abertura do sistema.
Quando as escolas portuguesas fecharam em 2020, o governo transformou os exames nacionais do secundário em provas opcionais: obrigatórias apenas para quem quisesse candidatar-se ao ensino superior. Três anos depois, o ministro da Educação João Costa defende que essa solução de emergência se torne política permanente.
Falando à agência Lusa no início do ano letivo de 2022, Costa argumentou que os anos de pandemia funcionaram como um experimento involuntário. As escolas continuaram, os alunos avançaram, e quase 50 mil jovens garantiram lugar nas universidades na primeira fase de candidaturas. Para o ministro, os dados são claros: tornar os exames opcionais não prejudica a educação nem fecha as portas ao ensino superior.
A reforma vai além da obrigatoriedade. Os exames passaram a incluir conjuntos de questões opcionais, onde apenas a melhor resposta conta — uma flexibilidade que Costa considera compatível com a maior autonomia curricular que os professores hoje têm. O Instituto de Avaliação Educativa, referiu, reconhece vantagens neste modelo.
Enquanto os exames do 9.º ano regressam ao seu papel tradicional nas classificações, as regras para o secundário continuam a ser negociadas entre o Ministério da Educação e o Ministério da Ciência e do Ensino Superior. Costa é cauteloso quanto à seleção direta por parte das universidades, temendo que a aparente racionalidade do modelo esconda novas formas de injustiça.
Em sentido contrário, o ministro elogiou as medidas que ampliam o acesso: vias especiais para diplomados do ensino profissional e artístico, e quotas reservadas a alunos de territórios escolares desfavorecidos. Para Costa, garantir que o mérito não depende do ponto de partida é, também, uma forma de justiça.
When schools shuttered across Portugal in 2020, the government faced an immediate problem: how to evaluate students fairly when classrooms had emptied. The solution was radical. National exams, the traditional gatekeepers of secondary education completion, became optional. Students could take them only if they planned to apply to university. Everyone else simply finished their studies without sitting for them.
Three years later, Education Minister João Costa is arguing that this emergency measure should become permanent policy. Speaking to the news agency Lusa as the school year began in September 2022, he made his position clear: keep the exams voluntary, keep them tied only to university entrance, and abandon the old system that required every student to pass them to graduate from secondary school.
The reasoning is straightforward, at least in Costa's telling. The pandemic years provided a natural experiment. Schools continued their work. Students still advanced. Nearly 50,000 young people gained university places in the first round of admissions. Nothing broke. Nothing failed. The data, he suggested, speaks for itself—there is no educational harm in making these exams optional, and no barrier to higher education access.
But the policy shift involves more than just making exams voluntary. The structure of the exams themselves changed during the pandemic, and Costa sees value in keeping those changes too. The tests now include optional question sets where only the best answer counts. This flexibility, he argues, aligns better with how schools have begun operating. Teachers now have more freedom to shape their curricula in responsive ways, and ultra-standardized exams sit uneasily with that approach. The Educational Assessment Institute, he noted, sees advantages in this looser framework.
Ninth-grade final exams are returning to their traditional role this year—they will count toward student grades again—but the rules for secondary exams remain unsettled. That decision is still being negotiated between the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education. The conversation is ongoing, but Costa's preference is clear.
He is also thinking carefully about how students gain entry to universities in the first place. The current system, he acknowledged, has flaws. But it is widely seen as fair and transparent, and those qualities matter. He warned against proposals that would let universities select their own students directly, arguing that such a shift could introduce unfairness even if it sounds sensible in theory. Instead, he praised recent changes that work in the opposite direction: special admission tracks for graduates of vocational and artistic programs, and a reserved quota for students from disadvantaged school districts designated as priority intervention zones. These measures, he said, function as positive discrimination—ensuring that capable students are not locked out of higher education simply because they lacked the competitive advantages their peers enjoyed.
Citas Notables
I favor making permanent this approach we adopted during the pandemic years— Education Minister João Costa
The data from these two years shows no harm to school work or university access. The placement numbers should make us very proud— Education Minister João Costa
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why would a minister want to make exams optional? Doesn't that seem like lowering standards?
He's not lowering standards so much as decoupling them. The exams still exist for students who need them—those applying to university. But he's saying: why force everyone to take a high-stakes test if they're not going to university? The pandemic showed it works.
But doesn't that create two tiers of students—those who take exams and those who don't?
It does, but he'd argue the tier already existed. Some students were always bound for university, others weren't. Now the test follows the path instead of blocking it.
What changed about the exams themselves?
They became less rigid. Instead of every question counting equally, students can now choose from optional sets and only their best answers count. It's more forgiving, less about perfect standardization.
Is he worried about fairness in university admissions?
Very much. He's cautious about letting universities pick their own students—he thinks that could hide bias. But he likes special tracks for vocational students and reserved spots for kids from struggling schools. That's fairness working the other way.
So this is really about flexibility?
It's about matching the system to how schools actually work now. Teachers have more freedom to teach. Exams should reflect that, not fight it.