The secondary school completion rate is lowest in the Greater Lisbon, Setúbal Peninsula and Algarve regions, particularly in the public network, according to a Pordata report by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. In the North, 81% of students who started a general secondary school course at a public school in 2020/21 completed it three years later, while in Greater Lisbon this rate was only 67%, worsening to 56% in vocational courses. In the 3rd cycle of basic education, the North and Central regions have completion rates above 90%, while Greater Lisbon and the Algarve fall below 85% in 2022/23.
In the 2024/2025 academic year, 2,078,116 students were enrolled in the Portuguese education system, 9,326 more than the previous year. This growth results from an increase of almost 9,000 students in primary education and almost 8,000 in higher education, which contradicts forecasts based on birth rates and reflects strong population growth related to immigration. In contrast, there was a drop of almost 4,000 students in pre-primary education and over 3,000 in secondary education.
In 2023/24, there were 206,011 students with one or both parents of foreign nationality in pre-primary, basic and secondary education. In higher education, the number of foreign students has quadrupled in the last 15 years, rising from 20,000 to 80,000 students in 2024/2025, with particularly significant growth in integrated master's programs, where they increased from 3,282 to 22,523 students. Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, France and Italy were the main countries of origin.
Higher education exceeded 456,000 enrolments in 2024/2025, a 30% increase compared to 2015. However, the dropout rate one year after entry reached as high as 30% in 2022/2023 and 2023/2024. Regarding teachers, the number of new teaching graduates (two thousand per year) is lower than exits through retirement (three thousand per year), representing one of the biggest challenges for the Portuguese education system.
