The Algarve is among the regions with the lowest rate of completion of upper secondary education within the expected three years, alongside Greater Lisbon and the Setúbal Peninsula, especially in public schools, according to a Pordata report. Data from the Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos shows that strong territorial differences persist in educational pathways. In the North, 81% of students who started a general upper secondary course at a public school in 2020/21 completed it three years later, while in Greater Lisbon this proportion was 67%, falling to 56% in vocational courses. In lower secondary education, the North and Centre present completion rates above the national average, generally exceeding 90%, while Greater Lisbon and the Algarve recorded values below 85% in 2022/23.
In the 2024/25 academic year, 2,078,116 students were enrolled in the Portuguese education system, 9,326 more than the previous year. The first cycle gained more than nine thousand students and higher education almost eight thousand, while pre-primary education lost close to four thousand children and upper secondary registered a decline of more than three thousand students. This growth contradicts forecasts based on birth rates and largely reflects the increase in population associated with immigration. In 2023/24, there were 206,011 students with one or both parents of foreign nationality in pre-primary and primary and secondary education.
Higher education had more than 456,000 students in 2024/25, an increase of 2% compared to the previous year, 15% compared to five years ago, and 30% compared to 2015. The presence of foreign students quadrupled in 15 years, rising from 20,000 to 80,000. Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, France, and Italy were the five countries with the most students in Portuguese higher education. In STEM areas, new enrollments rose from 17,304 to 27,193 in ten years. However, the dropout rate one year after enrollment reached 30% among students who entered in 2022/23 or 2023/24, a trend more pronounced in programs with lower average entry grades.
Teacher training is another of the identified challenges. The volume of new graduates, approximately two thousand per year, is lower than the approximately three thousand teachers who leave for retirement annually. Early childhood educators and primary and lower secondary teachers represent approximately 40% of new graduates in teaching master's programs, while upper secondary subject teachers correspond to only 20%.
