Education in Portugal is free and compulsory until the age of 18, when students complete the 12th grade. The education is regulated by the State through the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Science. There is a system of public education and also many private schools at all levels of education. The first Portuguese medieval universities were created in the 13th century, and the national higher education system is fully integrated into the European Higher Education Area.
The basic literacy rate of the Portuguese population is 95.2%, however the functional literacy is amongst the lowest in Europe. According to official sources in 2007, 64% of the population had never read a single book; within the population component that is functionally literate, only 17.9% read more than two books in one year (data collected by Marktest for TSF). According to INE (Portuguese Institute for National Statistics), only 3.7 million Portuguese workers (67% of the working active population) completed basic education (81% of the working population attainned the lower basic level of education and 12% attained the intermediate level of education).
According to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009, the average Portuguese 15-years old student, when rated in terms of reading literacy, mathematics and science knowledge, is placed at the same level as those students from the United States, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, France, Denmark, United Kingdom, Hungary and Taipei, with 489 points (493 is the average). Despite its gradual modernization and relative expansion since the 1960s, the educational system remained underdeveloped until the 2000s when it finally reached some of the developed world's best practices and trends.
Read more about Education In Portugal: History, Years of Schooling, Pre-higher Education, Other Types of School Education, Teacher Education, Non-traditional Studies, Private Vs. Public, School Violence, Foreign International Schools in Portugal, Criticism
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