Ministry promises to analyze 10,000 contributions on Citizenship before classes begin

The public consultation on the National Strategy for Education for Citizenship (ENEC) and Essential Learning (AE) for Citizenship and Development, which took place between July 21 and August 5, received 10,120 contributions, the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) revealed today.

Seven out of every 10 suggestions focused on the National Strategy for Citizenship Education (7,073 contributions), with the remainder relating to the discipline's AE.

In response to Lusa, the MECI guarantees that the Directorate-General for Education ( DGE ) is now "analyzing the contributions received, based on which changes to the documents placed for public consultation will be considered."

On Thursday night, in an interview with SIC, the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, had already guaranteed that the suggestions would be taken into account in the process.

"By the end of the month, a Resolution to approve the National Strategy for Education for Citizenship will be submitted for consideration by the Council of Ministers" and the Essential Learning for Citizenship and Development will also be approved: "both documents will come into force from September, for the 2025/2026 academic year", adds the MECI today.

The decision to review the discipline was announced last year by the Prime Minister, who argued that it was necessary to free the discipline from "ideological constraints."

A few days later, Minister Fernando Alexandre explained that the review was part of a broader process that included all disciplines.

Starting next academic year, Citizenship and Development will be regulated by Essential Learning, in line with a new National Strategy for Citizenship Education, which replaces the current guiding documents for the subject.

Launched in 2017 by the socialist minister Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, Citizenship and Development functions as a cross-cutting area of work in the 1st cycle, a subject in the 2nd and 3rd cycles, and as a training component in secondary school, with schools deciding whether it is taught as a stand-alone subject or in a multidisciplinary way.

This organization will not be changed, but the 17 domains until now, some mandatory and others optional, will be integrated into eight mandatory dimensions: Human Rights, Democracy and Political Institutions, Sustainable Development, Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship, Health, Media, Risk and Road Safety, and Pluralism and Cultural Diversity.

The new course outline appears to give less attention to controversial topics such as sexuality, which is only addressed in the context of health and human rights violations, and more emphasis on financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Without any references to the words “sexual” or “sexuality”, the apparent absence of Sex Education in new essential learning was, from the outset, the topic that most concerned associations and experts.

During the public consultation, positions in defense of sexual education multiplied, with the National Association of Medical Students, the Portuguese Society of Clinical Sexology and the Portuguese Fertility Association highlighting its proven impact on preventing risky behavior and gender-based violence.

The Alternative and Response Women's Union and several other associations linked to the defense of human rights and women, such as the Portuguese Association of Women Jurists, also criticized the changes.

The Portuguese Order of Psychologists recommended the explicit inclusion of sexual education and mental health in the school curriculum, with progressive learning from the first cycle and content and activities adapted to different ages, considering that, in the executive's proposal, "the reference to sexuality in the curricula is restricted, limited and technically imprecise."

The Minister of Education assured that content related to sexual education will not disappear from the curricula and, on Thursday, in an interview with SIC, he stated that "if sexual education training in Portugal depended on the Citizenship subject, it would be a disaster."

Photo: MECI.