The Regional Secretary for Education stressed this morning that, as a result of the educational policies developed by the Government in improving school infrastructures and equipments, regional schools have classrooms and specific areas for the extension of compulsory education."

Cláudia Cardoso spoke at a press conference and mentioned that "if the 12-year compulsory education would be extended in the current school year to all students enrolled at the Regional Education System, the regional secondary schools would have the capacity to receive 10,650 students using all specific areas and another 4439 students if a room would be assigned to each class."

The government official said that "the challenge we face with this new paradigm of compulsory education is not just related with the conditions of our schools, but rather with the effective integration of these students. For such, it is necessary to diversify the training offer to provide a response to the natural diversity of learning profiles and student motivation, based on educational criteria and the encouragement of educational success."

On the other hand, "it is essential to proceed, as provided in the School Charter, to the specialisation of the training offer provided by secondary schools in the municipalities where there is more than one school providing the same offer so that we may have a more balanced distribution of students."

Cláudia Cardoso added that, as recently announced, secondary education will also reach the island of Corvo, thus covering all students across the archipelago. Compulsory education will be extended to 12 years.

The Regional Secretary also reminded that "besides the impact on Corvo's social and cultural context, this measure ensures the access of an increasing number of youngsters to education and the possibility to pursue studies."

Given the existing human and material resources at the Mouzinho da Silveira Basic Education School and the reduction of costs with school social programmes, "the extension of secondary education to Corvo will have a reduced budget impact," concluded.