The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture considered that "significant decrease" of school failure rates in the Regional Education System are "important and positive," especially in the elementary school level.

Avelino Meneses spoke on the sidelines of the meetings of the Coordinating Council of the Education System and the Permanent Commission of Public School Establishment. In this regard, the government official stressed that this decrease in elementary school "is about 50%," adding that this trend was also registered in the middle and junior high school as well as in Secondary school, although "to a lesser extent."

"We are halfway the path towards school success, which is what we want to effectively achieve," said the government official.

According to the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture, this drop is not only the result of "the changes introduced in the evaluation rules in the basic education level," but also of "the measures that began to be implemented last year under ProSucesso."

"Our expectation is that things will go more quickly from now on," stressed Avelino Meneses, because "this year, due to demographic reasons, we have fewer students but, in return, we have 266 more teachers in the Regional Education System."

The entry of more teachers into the regional system means that "the monitoring of students will be more effective and there is greater possibility to prevent delays in earlier ages."
However, the Regional Secretary for Education pointed out that "we cannot, in any circumstance, celebrate too soon," stressing "everything happens too slowly when it comes to matters of education."

ProSucesso, an Azorean programme designed to promote school success, "is a programme with an implementation period of 10 years and can only be assessed over time," stressed the government official.

"It is no coincidence that, with regard to ProSucesso, we have established a Scientific Council that also includes a Coordinating Committee and, now, we will have an Evaluation Committee"; the latter will supervision on the ground "all measures that are being implemented," said the Regional Secretary.

This Evaluation Committee, which is yet to be properly constituted, will be chaired by Jorge Lima, professor at the University of the Azores, informed the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture.
 
During the meetings that took place today at Domingos Rebelo Secondary School, it was agreed that, from now on, the unforeseen absences of teachers "do not necessarily require the replacement of classes" in secondary education. These meetings were attended by more than seventy representatives of public schools, vocational training schools, cooperatives and teachers' unions.

Secondary school students have a higher level of maturity and, therefore, must take control and manage these "free times" with responsibility," said Avelino Meneses.

"We want to replace control by responsibility," said the government official.

On the other hand, the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture said that, school boards will receive specific training so that their members can become acquainted "with new management models and new strategies to promote school success."

This training course, which will be taught by Roberto Carneiro, former Minister of Education and member of the Scientific Council of ProSucesso, will be held in partnership with Microsoft and the Catholic University.