The fact that the concentration of the population along the coast, the urbanisation of the Portuguese population, the decrease in school population, the emergence of new education models and the lack of investment in the refitting of the school network¹ coexisted in time after the end of the Estado Novo period² and of the advent of democracy led the Portuguese primary school network³ to be physically and functionally unfit: scattered and isolated schools, low levels of attendance and lack of means and resources in low density areas and overcrowded schools unable to operate in normal schedules and to provide spaces of Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA)⁴ in high density areas (Barreto, 2000; Justino, 2017; Mendes, 2018; Stoer, 1986).

Following the publication of the Basic Education System Law (BESL)⁵, in 1986 (Law 46/86, of 14 October), which established, for the first time, the general framework for the Portuguese education system, we see the school network planning being addressed in the national educational agenda and, under the contagious effect of the global crisis of the central administration model, the decentralisation of education and the involvement of municipalities being called on, aiming to bring political decisions closer to local realities (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1990) and, on the other hand, to pursue an efficient and effective management of public funds, which the economic globalisation process, increasingly deregulated, were made scarcer and less clear in its distribution and use (Cordeiro & Alcoforado, 2018; Santos, Alcoforado, & Cordeiro, 2017). Perhaps for these reasons many of these processes appeared connected with expectations and distrust at various levels. It is vital that research helps create participatory dynamics that can problematize these uncertainties, helping to transform them into better quality actions in the defense of public education, thought and designed to respond to the more effective needs of people and their contexts (Freire, 2001).

However, despite the transformation that led to the establishment of the school charter⁶ as the municipal planning approach in Law 159/99, of 14 September⁷, the required refitting was not achieved and Portugal entered the 21st century with an inadequate primary school network in dire need of an overall refurbishment.

The necessary changes in the primary school network were only made possible with the publication of Decree-law 7/2003, of 15 January⁸, which solves the shortcomings of the school charter and lays down the education charter. In terms of concept, it abandons the traditional planning model⁹ and applies the principles of strategic planning¹⁰ (Santos, Cordeiro, & Alcoforado, 2014), establishing itself as a forward means of planning and managing educational buildings and facilities at municipal level. In terms of operation, it regulates the process of elaboration and approval as well as its effects and ensures the financial resources for its implementation, allocated from the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007-2013.

However, the improvement was not enough to motivate the municipalities, and between 2003 and 2005 only 24 of the 308 Portuguese municipalities implemented the first generation education charter (Rodrigues, 2010). To speed up its implementation, in 2005 the Ministry of Education (ME) concluded an agreement between the government and the municipalities with a view to defining the competences of each entity, the State funding needed for its implementation, the education charter model¹¹ and the terms under which the primary school network was to be organised. The intention was to create the physical conditions needed to concentrate the school population in larger schools, end the double-shift school arrangement, do away with precarious school buildings and suit the spatial-functional conditions to the educational requirements, proposing to close down schools with fewer than 10 students¹² and to create new school establishments¹³ to achieve this objective. Thus, from 2005 onwards the municipalities moved forward with their first generation education charters, most of which were evaluated and approved between 2006 and 2010. The whole process was supported by the national primary school and preschool network refurbishment programme, set up in 2007 to ensure equal opportunity of access to education spaces endowed with the necessary resources conducive to educational success and to regulate the access scheme to the said community funding.

The first generation education charter made a significant change to the primary school network (and, consequently, preschool network) on a scale previously known only when the Centenary Plan¹⁴ was implemented, but now with a different meaning. The criteria of location, size and architectural and functional adequacy were changed and today the primary school network is more concentrated and updated, including schools and typologies more suited to broader educational requirements (Azevedo, 2014). Instead of having scattered small schools (with one or two classrooms) and single-level education, with one teacher only and no additional support facilities (cafeteria, library and sports facilities), schools are now centralised, have at least four classrooms (to ensure one classroom and one teacher per school year), have different education levels and the necessary means and resources.

The first generation education charter created the conditions for the municipalities to reorganise their primary school network, enabling them to “find local education solutions in the national political context” (Matthews, Klaver, Lannert, Ó Conluain, & Ventura, 2009: p. 38), thus marking the conclusion of the conceptual and methodological change process initiated by the BESL (Cordeiro, Martins, & Ferreira, 2014). After a long period of centralism, this move was a major step towards achieving decentralisation, with a shift from a top-down sort of arrangement to another of a bottom-up nature (Cordeiro, 2014).

The first generation education charter mirrored a complex local policy building process that endured much pressure with decisive influence on the various decision-making phases and levels. As the preparation phase is already well investigated, at a time when the revision of the education charters (second generation) are under way, the analysis of the execution phase, a topic still little investigated, seems to be an interesting subject of study to thoroughly understand the reorganisation process of the Portuguese school network. With this in mind, this article is divided into two parts: the first one builds on the observation of the predominant traits and more distinctive characteristics of each school network reorganisation, identifies and interprets the type of planning solutions adopted by the municipalities under analysis; the second part assesses the different levels of achievement of the proposals submitted, highlighting and interpreting the deviations by comparison with initial forecasts, and compares its effective contribution to the modernisation of the Portuguese school network and, in particular, to the promotion of equal opportunities in the education system.

This work is based on a qualitative research developed, in a first phase, through the analysis of national regulations and relevant scientific literature and, in a second phase, of numerous case studies. To ensure a broad strategic vision of the diverse national territory, we have considered two Intermunicipal Communities (IMC)¹⁵ in the central region of Portugal: Coimbra Region IMC¹⁶ and Beiras and Serra da Estrela IMC¹⁷, which include 34 of the 100 municipalities that make up the region and form a strip of land that stretches from the coast to the interior consisting of municipalities marked by very different physical, demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, educational and political realities (Figure 1). This will give us a picture of the different questions that arise in territories with such different realities, will allow us to identity the aspects that have influenced the most the decisions made during the implementation of the first generation education charters, and gather proof that although the guidelines are conducted along national lines, the country has evolved at very different paces, with territorial dynamics strongly interfering in the choices and progress made.

In spite of the incredible effort made, drafting the education charter did not go as planned. Although it might be said that it reflected a new structural vision of the Portuguese education system and constituted a major step towards the engagement of the municipalities in the educational system and their joint responsibility for the results, the announced decentralisation never materialised and the school network plan was kept under strong State scrutiny. The municipalities had to deal with the clear contradiction between having, for the first time, the opportunity to actively participate in the discussions of the solutions for reorganising their preschool and primary school network and, simultaneously, having to comply with the guidelines defined at central level concerning which schools to close and the type, size and characteristics of the educational buildings to be created, on which the approval of the education charters by the ME and the community funding depended (Neto-Mendes, 2007).

The double standards of the State and society’s natural opposition to change made the municipalities react very distinctly when the proposed reorganisation of the school network was drafted. A previous research (Cordeiro & Martins, 2013) carried out in 14 municipalities of the central region of Portugal between 2009 and 2011 exemplified some characteristics that distinguished three types of solutions for school network reorganisation: the central type, “when the proposed solutions for the reorganisation of the school network run fully parallel with those defended by the Central State”, the conciliation type, “when the solutions found tend to harmonise the solutions determined by the State with those defended by the municipality”, and the municipal type, “when the prevailing solutions correspond mostly to the interests of the various local players, superimposing or ignoring, to a great extent, the criteria and objectives defined at central level” (Cordeiro & Martins, 2013: pp. 351-353)¹⁸. This study, based on a sample that provides for broader territorial characteristics and a greater geographical diversity, at a time when final results can be presented, confirms and reaffirms the three patterns established previously and identifies the prevailing trends (Figure 2).

The reading of the reality in the 34 municipalities of the central region of Portugal under study shows that the conceptual plan and the operational plan were not always aligned when it came to implementing the proposal for the school network reorganisation as per the education charter (Figure 3). The data show that although most municipalities chose to fully (total) or close to fully (partial high) conform to the defined strategy, showing that when it was drafted they did intend to achieve it, the number of municipalities where this did was not the case was quite significant. Departures from the programme initially set are almost always due to internal difficulties, even if external factors, beyond the scope of the municipalities, were responsible for the introduction of more or less specific changes. Non-conformity is, therefore, more of a consequence than a motive of the actions taken.

If we draw a parallel between the type of proposal for the reorganisation of the school network presented in the education charter and the degree of implementation in all the 34 municipalities under analysis, we can conclude that compliance with the intention and the action is greater in the municipalities that adopted the municipal type solution, which was expected (Figure 4). The lack of structural changes to the school network, the low investment involved and the close alignment between the local political and social interests seem to be some of the main reasons for the high level of achievement found in these territories. In these cases, the existing deviations are mostly due to the drop in school attendance, which in many low density territories forced the unplanned close down of small schools and the concentration of the school population²¹. See, for example, the case of the municipality of Covilhã, where the strong drop in the number of students dictated a reorganisation of the municipal school network. In other cases, the changes to the initial project were caused by the change of the ruling municipal power, which almost always resulted in a more or less abrupt change in the course of the local education policy. Note the case of the municipality of Oliveira do Hospital, where the new political team took a fresh look at the strategy for the intervention in the school network and proposed the construction of an unplanned school establishment, showing, unlike the previous one, some concerns with the renewal of the types of primary schools.

In contrast, the difference between what was originally planned and what was actually achieved is more significant in the municipalities with a conciliation type of reorganisation. The poor implementation rate appears to relate to the double standards that characterise this type of school network reorganisation, the opposition of the local community to the closing down of primary schools, the lack of political will to go ahead with the reconfiguration of the school network, the weaknesses of the local players and the difficulty in obtaining funding for all the programmed projects, which forced the prioritisation of investments.

With the exception of the municipality of Miranda do Corvo, it is the large cities that fail to comply with the plans (Coimbra, Figueira da Foz and Guarda). The municipalities of Figueira da Foz and Guarda are of particular note, as their level of implementation is far below the expected target. In the former, three of the eight planned school establishments were built, two in the urban areas and one in a peri-urban parish. In the latter, three of the eleven planned school establishments were built, one in the urban centre, to meet the increasing demand, and two in the rural areas, as territorial clusters. Although the number of primary schools dropped significantly, especially in the Guarda municipality, due to its declining demography, which led to the closure of more than two dozen small schools, in both cases more schools than had been planned continued in operation.

Finally, the implementation rate is also low in the municipalities that opted for the central type of school network reorganisation. The reasons which can justify the non-compliance with the set programme include the different political drives in what comes to facing the opposition of the local populations regarding the closing down of small schools and the modernization of the school network, the gradual drop in the school population, which made some of the planned measures unnecessary, and the investment required for implementing some of the proposals, which imposed that the interventions had to be prioritised. Indeed, while on the one hand the objectivity of this type of reorganisation solution, that aimed for the full renewal of the primary school network, made it quite unique, it was also its greatest obstacle when it came to making it operational, as it required greater financial resources than the other typologies. This was the case of the municipalities of Cantanhede and Montemor-o-Velho, where only three out of nine planned school establishments were created for the former and one out of four in the latter case. In these territories, the choice fell on the construction of new school establishments in urban centres and in the main population centres and on maintaining the existing primary schools in the rest of the territory, clearly out of line with the current reference standards. As for the municipality of Trancoso, non-compliance was due to the drop in the number of students in the middle school, which freed up space to accommodate primary school students and made the construction of the new block designed for this level of education unfeasible. Regardless of the reasons for not complying with the planned strategy, the fact is that except for the municipality of Mealhada, the high density municipalities found it more difficult to implement the proposal for the school network reorganisation contained in the education charter.

Although all the relations that can be established between the type of proposal for the school network reorganisation in the education charter and the level of compliance are valid, and despite all the justifications we can find to support them, often the non-compliance with the defined strategies is due to the fact that many of these strategies were designed with one single purpose: to fully observe the requirements necessary for the ME to approve the education charter and for obtaining the community funding, and not its actual implementation. Only the investments considered as a priority were provided for, usually located in densely populated areas.

In terms of the results achieved, and again based on the reality in all the 34 municipalities of the central region of Portugal under study, they reflect the different choices made during the preparation and implementation phase of the proposal for the school network reorganisation contained in the education charter, showing major discrepancies in the teaching and learning conditions between municipalities, and even within the same municipality.

In the territories with municipal type of school network reorganisations, the geographical distribution of the school network changed little: school establishments continued scattered and the proximity logic prevailed. This is where we find a large number of small primary schools²² still in operation and the new school establishments are an exception and almost always set aside for areas in need. The result is that each parish still has one school and there is hardly any increase in the number of students in mobility. The effects of this type of school network reorganisation are felt the most in the rural areas, as this is where the operational conditions of school establishments are usually the worst.

The result of the implementation of the central type of school network reorganisations was that instead of having scattered schools, their location became concentrated, revealing the rational logic overlapping the traditional proximity logic. The most visible impacts include the closing down of many primary schools, the increase in the number of parishes without any educational courses being offered to this level of education, the significant growth in the number of students in mobility and the recognition of the new school establishments as the best solution for solving the problems of the primary school. Note that the location of the new school establishments took into consideration reasonable commutes between home and school, considering the distance travelled and the duration thereof, so that students do not have to spend a long time in the commute, but also to reduce school transport costs.

Municipalities where the conciliation type of school network reorganisation was implemented and the remaining territories²³ show mixed solutions, where areas with scattered schools and those in which the schools are concentrated coexist in the same territory. Here, rationality was brought into line with proximity: in low density territories the logic of one school per parish was adopted and the schools inherited from the Centenary Plan continued to operate, closing only those imposed by the ME due to the school attendance reduction; in urban territories the option was to close down small schools and concentrate the population in new school establishments. The result of the double standards, embodied in the coexistence of different types of primary schools, was that the increase in the number of students in mobility was felt only in some areas of the municipal territory. In these municipalities, the inequality of opportunities that motivated this deep intervention in the school network became even more pronounced.

This analysis shows that despite the significant planning work done, visible in the nearly two hundred primary schools being closed down and in the more than forty school establishments built/refitted (Table 1), in many cases the only changes to the primary school network were those resulting of the increasing decline in school attendance, which led to the gradual closing down of small schools. The result in these territories was the preservation of a school network mostly characterised by unattractive and hardly functional buildings, with less than four classrooms, and, therefore, unable to ensure one classroom and one teacher per school year, in addition to having few students in the different years of schooling²⁴.

Source: Self elaboration.

Despite the deviations from the initial objectives and the different results achieved, the education charter served as a legitimising instrument to speed up the Portuguese primary school network reorganisation, which now is more in line with the education ideal and with current social dynamics (Photo 1 and Photo 2). Some of its most outstanding aspects are the closing down of thousands of small primary schools and the proliferation of new school establishments. According to IFME data, while the education charter was being drafted and implemented, which took place mostly between 2005 and 2010, more than 2500 small primary schools were closed down and about six hundred school establishments were built. The change embodied in the education charter and anchored in stringent development criteria marked the beginning of a new evolutionary cycle of education in Portugal, moving from the “crisis of problems” to the “crisis of solutions” (Barroso, 2003).

Photo 1. Front view of the Espinhal primary school—Penela Municipality. Source: Self elaboration.

Photo 2. Front view of the Espinhal new school establishment—Penela Municipality. Source: Self elaboration.

The profound demographic, socioeconomic and educational changes that Portugal lived in the last decades of the 20th century created a strong imbalance between school demand and offer in the primary school, visible in the isolated small schools in low density areas and overcrowded schools with double-shift arrangements in urban centres. In view of these structural problems, the Portuguese government placed the school network planning on the national education agenda in the early years of the 20th century, completely changing the paradigm in force with further decentralisation and adopting new planning methods. The education charter served as the instrument of this change that allowed the municipalities, for the first time and almost two decades after the publication of the BESL, to consider the Portuguese primary school network in the light of the actual reality and of the expected societal changes.

But, although the education charter opened the discussion to the whole society and effectively contributed to the Portuguese public primary school network reorganisation, the whole process did not go as planned. The research done in this paper shows a clear strategic ambiguity in local choices during the drafting and implementation phases of the education charter, as a result of the national guidelines being accepted differently by the local powers and communities, mainly tied with political, demographic and pedagogical issues. As a result of the heterogeneous municipal argumentations, today (as opposed to the beginning of the second half of the 20th century) we are seeing a broad variety of situations, for example, in some municipalities the school network is fully refitted, in others the new educational buildings coexist with old primary schools and in others little or nothing has changed, except for the forced closing down of schools due to the decline in the school population.

A second idea that can be drawn from this analysis is that, contrary to what one might have thought, it is not the municipalities with a stronger population and economic dynamic that are more concerned about the refitment of the school network. The results of this comparative study show that the more profound interventions in the school network are found in low density territories and, conversely, the more densely populated areas find it more difficult to push for the reorganisation of the school network. It thus becomes clear that when it comes to defining the municipal education strategy and make decisions, the local political issues prevail over the demographic, economic and pedagogical issues.

To conclude, although the involvement of municipalities in the definition of the education policy fared well, the entire process was regulated by the central power. Strengthening local autonomy did not happen as announced and the interests of the municipalities came up against the rules defined at central level and communicated to the municipalities to be implemented, as was the case of the closing down of small schools.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Santos, L. I. R., Cordeiro, A. M. R., & Alcoforado, J. L. M. (2021). First Generation Education Charters in Portugal: Intentions and Achievements. Open Journal of Political Science, 11, 328-346. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2021.112022