Session Information
17 SES 01, Parallel Paper Session
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
Despite the intention expressed by the Marquis de Pombal in a legal diploma approved in 1759 to generalize schooling in Portugal, the social and political instability prevented the spread of schooling to the whole country yet for a long time. In the mid XIXth century private initiative joined the State’s effort to improve the emergence of new schools and the children’s attendance and had even exceeded the State in the results achieved.
In 1870, the Minister of Instruction, António da Costa, presented to the High Parliament an important comparative study between education in Portugal and the other ‘civilized’ nations: Prussia, Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Baviera, England, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and even the United States. These data showed the long way Portugal still had to make to reach a similar level concerning the number of schools and of students as well as the budget that should be spent with national education improvement.
Some years later after having left the Ministry, António da Costa published important books that revealed the relevance of private schooling in the development of the education in Portugal. A certain preconception linked to an anticlerical thread very common in the Portuguese society justified by the circumstance that many of the private schools were held by religious communities encouraged the debate around this issue. To this thread another idea took shape: the responsibility of the State to provide the necessary conditions for all the Portuguese so that all have access to education. Public school was then a flag for political propaganda and successive governments took it as a priority.
Although the Portuguese Constitution since its former formulations still in the XIXth century ensure the freedom of teaching and learning by the capacity either to found a private school or to choose the private or public school where to teach or to learn according to each one’s preferences or personal identification with the respective pedagogical projects the debate have been increasing and is now on the agenda. In fact, in Portuguese tradition private schools are economically independent from the State which questions the real freedom to choose.
Each country has its different way of facing private versus public schooling. Even in European countries there are substantial differences materialized for instance in the state’s subvention which is considered in some of them as a right of private schools as a way of allowing free choice. This comparison will unearth an issue that may be important to guaranty freedom in such important area as education.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
For now: Adragão, P. (1995). A liberdade de aprender e a liberdade das escolas particulares. Lisboa: Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Cotovio, J. (2004). O ensino privado: a mais económica e qualificada proposta de educação para todos. Lisboa: Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Estêvão, C. (1998). Redescobrir a escola privada portuguesa como organização. Braga: Universidade do Minho. Kahlenberg, R. (ed.). (2003). Public school choice vs. private school vouchers. New York: Century Foundation Press. Pinto, M. (2003). Liberdades de aprender e de ensinar. Lisboa: Quetzal Ed. Ribeiro de Castro, H. (2001). O ensino privado e a educação para todos – uma história pioneira. Actas do VI Congresso Galaico-Português de Psicopedagogia (vol. I, pp.751-764). Braga: Universidade do Minho. Ribeiro de Castro, H. (2007). Teresa de Saldanha: um projeto inovador no século XIX, uma interrogação para o século XXI. Lisboa: Universidade de Lisboa. [PhD thesis] Ribeiro de Castro, H. (2011). Difusão da Cultura e Promoção da Vida: Uma escola no centro de um bairro pobre na Lisboa do século XIX. [http://www.ensino.eu/media/230703/difusao_da_cultura_e_promocao_da_vida.pdf, Maio 2011] Walford, G. (1991). Private schooling: tradition, change and diversity. London: Paul Chapman Educational Pub.
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