Education Minister Fernando Alexandre publicly praised his predecessor João Costa for the serious manner in which he took responsibility for Portugal's results in the Programme for International Student Assessment, known as PISA. This program evaluates the academic performance of students from various countries in areas such as mathematics, reading, and science.
Fernando Alexandre pointed out that one of the main failures of the previous term was not having acted on the use of mobile phones in schools. According to the minister, the lack of intervention in this area represented a significant problem for the performance of Portuguese students.
The article's title states that the current minister is "correcting failures" of the Socialist Party, the party under which João Costa served as Education Minister. This position comes in a context where the new PSD/CDS-PP government seeks to distinguish itself from the previous management of the Education portfolio.
The exchange of comments between the two ministers took place during a ceremony presenting the PISA results, where Fernando Alexandre took the opportunity to outline the priorities of his leadership at the Ministry of Education, including measures to restrict the use of mobile phones in Portuguese schools.
