The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture (SREC) announced in Ponta Delgada that the Government of the Azores will amend the ordinance on the evaluation basic education students with the aim of promoting school success and avoiding "the worst situation that can happen: automatic progression of students."

In order to achieve this goal and "decrease the retention rate as far as possible, we need to create measures directed to the promotion of school success," said Avelino Meneses. In this regard, the Regional Secretary stressed that these measures comprise "the earlier identification of learning difficulties from preschool to elementary school to avoid a late intervention" and the training of teachers on learning recovery; the latter "may require some investment but will offset the increased retention costs."

For Avelino Menses, these measures should be complemented, for example, with the work developed by each school establishment so that "school management becomes more focused on education and less bureaucratic. As time goes on, it is always important to finds different paths that meet the different expectations of students."

The amendment to the government ordinance, which should be published in Official Journal on Friday, falls within the "our key goal: school success," the Regional Secretary said, adding that "an evaluation guided by the principles of quality and rigour" is, precisely, "one of the tools to achieve school success."

"More important than regarding evaluation as tests and marks, we consider that evaluation is essentially formative insofar as learning is regarded as a truly integrated process that takes into consideration the type of students we have and their own specificities," emphasised the government official.

Avelino Meneses spoke to journalists at the beginning of a working meeting with the mediators for school success, a programme promoted by EPIS (Entrepreneurs for Social Inclusion) in coordination with the Regional Directorate for Education. The Regional Secretary highlighted the adherence of eight schools to this initiative in the current school year. This initiative is being implemented in the junior high school level, following a first experience conducted in Madalena, Pico.

Targeted at the development of non-cognitive skills among youngsters at risk, the programme covers the basic education schools of Arrifes, Rabo de Peixe, Capelas, Angra do Heroísmo and Praia da Vitória as well as the secondary schools of Laranjeiras, Lagoa and Jerónimo Emiliano de Andrade School. According to the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture a total of five hundred students at risk were identified by the programme.

"By identifying students with difficulties," the programme is "expected to provide a more personalised follow-up that will allow us to fight two scourges: school dropout and school failure."