The Portuguese Government, led by Luís Montenegro, will proceed with the merger of the first and second cycles of basic education, creating a single learning cycle covering from 1st to 6th grade. The Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, announced that this measure will be tested through a pilot project starting in the 2027/2028 school year, in various educational establishments across the country. The main objective is to eliminate the abrupt transition that currently exists between 4th and 5th grade, when students move from a single-teacher system to a model with multiple teachers and specialized subjects.
Fernando Alexandre argued that the current division between cycles lacks modern pedagogical justification, being an administrative inheritance. According to the government official, Portugal is a unique case in Europe in this matter, as the current structure results from an administrative decision to increase compulsory schooling and not from a pedagogical logic. With the new architecture, the aim is a progressive transition, maintaining the teaching base under the responsibility of basic education teachers, but enriched with gradual intervention from teachers in specific areas.
The reform will also bring significant changes to the working conditions of 1st cycle teachers, whose teaching load will decrease from the current 25 hours per week to 22 hours upon entry into the career, matching the conditions of the other cycles. The minister assured that this reduction will not result in less time spent by students at school, as that period will be filled by teachers from other areas and complementary activities. Over the past two years, the system has managed to attract 11,000 new teachers to the profession.
The educational community reacted with a mixture of openness and caution. Filinto Lima, president of the National Association of School Cluster and Public School Directors, considered the idea positive, but warned that the lack of detail on implementation could cause the proposal to die at birth. The National Education Federation recognized pedagogical advantages but demanded prior union negotiation and rejected the measure being used to circumvent the teacher shortage. Regarding the scarcity of teachers, Fernando Alexandre minimized the impact of medical sick leave and indicated that the problem is concentrated in about ten school clusters in Greater Lisbon and the Setúbal Peninsula, where displacement allowances of up to 500 euros per month and new binding conditions for qualified teachers will be provided.
