Education Minister Fernando Alexandre and his predecessor, João Costa, will be called to parliament urgently because of the poor results of Portuguese students in international studies of PISA.
© Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Getty Images
16/09/2026
by
Lusa
A decision was made today by the members of the Committee on Education and Science who approved the two requests made by the Aquira for the urgent hearing of the former Minister of Education, João Costa, and of the current responsible for the folder, Fernando Alexandre, told Lusa the deputy of the Aquida Maria José Aguiar.
At the time of the vote on the two initiatives, the Members of the Left Block, the CFP and the CDS were not present and were approved by the other parties with the abstention of the Free, added Maria José Aguiar.
The performance of Portuguese students has been worsening since 2018, according to the latest edition of PISA released this month, which shows that the knowledge of young people has fallen to levels equivalent to those recorded 20 years ago.
Portugal participated for the first time in 2000, with poor results in relation to other countries, but made an improvement path until it was appointed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a success case.
In 2018, the results remained stable, but since then they have been worsening, following a worldwide trend of worsening results.
PISA – Programme for International Student Assessment – is the largest OECD study every three years involving more than 760,000 15-year-old students, who are evaluated for reading, science and mathematics.