Portuguese schools start this Friday a new school year marked by two major challenges: the ban on smartphones up to 9th grade and the already announced shortage of teachers, particularly in the Lisbon area. On the eve of the start, the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, acknowledged that many students will start classes without all their teachers, with approximately 2,700 unfilled schedules in schools.
To minimize the shortage of teachers, the Ministry will implement a new continuous and daily teacher placement mechanism, which starts on September 18. This measure comes days before the return of secondary school students, whose start was delayed to September 21 to give teachers more time to rest, after the problems verified in the digital grading of national exams.
Between this Friday and next Tuesday, more than one million students from preschool and primary education return to school. This month of September also includes an extraordinary session of national exams, held to ensure that no student was harmed by the problems in the release of grades.
Another novelty is the extension of the smartphone ban in playgrounds up to 9th grade, based on studies indicating more socialization and less indiscipline in schools without these devices. Schools that still need to prepare conditions have until the end of December to do so, with the rule being mandatory in all primary schools from January 2027.
