The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture announced that the new curriculum guidelines for preschool education and basic education, including elementary, middle and junior school levels, will be submitted to approval in the Azores.
 
Avelino Meneses spoke Wednesday at delivery ceremony of merit prizes to students of Vitorino Nemésio Secondary School in Praia da Vitória, adding that the "new school curriculum guidelines are based on four key pillars."
 
According to the government official, these "pillars" concern the curricular autonomy and flexibility project, which "includes principles already evident in ProSucesso; the profile of students upon completion of compulsory schooling, so as to "meet the needs of society"; essential learning in order to ensure that "fundamental aspects are always included in the course curriculum," and the national strategy for citizenship education.
 
The Regional Secretary revealed that the new school curriculum guidelines are committed to "important goals." They concern the adaptation of new curricular programmes to "new trends in education that require a revision of methodologies" and the need to endow schools with greater autonomy in time and curriculum management so that they may "best fit the different realities of our school environments."
 
As for other relevant goals, Avelino Meneses mentioned the proximity to the national curriculum, as justified by the "uniformity" of external assessment tests in Mainland Portugal and the autonomous regions, and the maintenance of "regional and local references" that contribute to "the establishment and perpetuation of identities and their specificities."
 
The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture also highlighted that new curriculum guidelines introduces some "novelties," pointed out that the learning of English, which remains compulsory in elementary school, will be "considered for year progression purposes." In turn, the citizenship course will be reformulated and designated as "citizenship and development," complying with specific guidelines that "prevent its transformation into an area of indistinct teaching."
 
The introduction of new information and communication technologies across elementary school levels and as a specific course in the middle and junior high school as well as the option for different methods of teaching the history, geography and culture of the Azores in middle and junior high school, either as a comprehensive subject or as a specific course without formal evaluation" were other "novelties" mentioned by Avelino Meneses.
 
In his speech, the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture also emphasised the Government's investment effort in facilities that, despite "not being the core of institutions, nevertheless facilitate educational actions." In this context, the Government invested about half a million Euros in the maintenance and repair works of Vitorino Nemésio Secondary School in the last four years