The requirement of reporting cases of student failure, whenever the number of students who have failed surpasses 10% of the total number of students in the class, and sending the reports to the IRE (Regional Inspectorate of Education) will no longer be mandatory.

The measure was announced by the Regional Secretary for Education and Training, after a visit to the Francisco Ornelas da Câmara Basic Education School.

Cláudia Cardoso explained that this will be one of the amendments to be introduced to the Students’ Administrative and Educational Rules (RGAPA) in order to “reduce the work assigned to teacher in reporting cases of student failure, which has proved to be unnecessary and even redundant.”

The Regional Secretary for Education and Training said that “what we are trying to do is just the reverse: the Regional Inspectorate of Education will go to the schools where, for example, the PASE results do not correspond to the students’ performance at school.”

Whereas the Regional Secretariat considers that “the class situation should not be analysed based on percentages,” Cláudia Cardoso explained that filling in student failure form will also cease to be mandatory since each student has a specific Recovery Plan, which stipulates the recovery strategies, and the analysis of teaching/learning process will become of the Class Curriculum Project.

The Regional Secretary concluded that “this form was unnecessary since it was a repetition of what had been already done in the student’s recovery plan.” Hence, in the case of student failure, the class council will be in charge of identifying the strategies and skills the student failed to acquire as well as to define the methods and strategies to be implemented next year, which should be compulsorily registered in the student’s recovery plan and reported to parents.

Furthermore, Cláudia Cardoso stated that “the Class Council will also oversee all matters concerning the implementation of strategies to prevent school dropout, without involving the Educational Board and parents.” In this context, the Class Council will have the final say in such decisions.