Avelino Meneses points out "improvements" in progression and non-progression rates in 2018/2019 school year
The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture stated today in Povoação that the provisional data for the 2018/2019 school year in the Azores “demonstrate once again” improvements in progression and non-progression rates, which are now "more evident" in secondary education.
Avelino Meneses spoke at the prize-delivery ceremony for the awarding of the first place in the "Medea 10" national contest to the team of students from Povoação Basic and Secondary School. On the occasion, he stressed that the development of education “depends on the commitment of all of us."
Pointing out the example of the "Novelãos Team," the winner of this national Physics prize, the Secretary for Education stated that the "sum" of the contributions to this commitment "must necessarily promote the desired improvement of results" insofar as education is "a realm of improvements, slow but secure improvements."
These results will be even better if “we coordinate initiatives, take joint actions and even seek cooperation from other civil society institutions,” said Avelino Meneses.
The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture highlighted that it is important to “intensify” collaborative work among teachers and group work among students, recalling that “teamwork is not always easy, but when everyone has the same goal the results are fantastic."
According to Avelino Meneses, education is nowadays the main “anchor of development,” seeing that the progress of the economy and society "mainly" stems from the access to knowledge rather than the possession of raw materials or the quality of the workforce.
An initiative of the Portuguese Society of Physics sponsored by REN (National Electricity System), the Medea contest, already in its 10th edition, stems from a project focused on the measurement of electric and magnetic fields in the environment to study possible effects of these fields on human health.
The winning work, carried out in the course of the 2018/2019 school year, involved six students from Povoação Basic Education School enrolled in the 12th form Physics course, under the guidance of the respective teacher, who took the measurements and created a web page for the contest.