“The PNL will continue, it will continue within the DEDUCAjust likeRBE [Rede de Bibliotecas Escolares] will continue within EDUQA, but its projects will continue, its brand will continue to exist, its institutional identity will be preservedprecisely because the objective of reforming the Ministry is not to ruin what works”, stated Secretary of State Alexandre Homem Cristo, at the PNL’s annual conference, which takes place in Calouste Gulbenkian Foundationin Lisbon.
The Deputy Secretary of State and Education specified that It was never the Government’s intention to end the PNL and that the expressions of concern that have emerged in Portuguese society are seen as a positive sign of the work that has been done by the PNL.
For this reason, the objective of a reform of the Ministry of Education which aims to improve the way the ministry works cannot be “putting an end to what works”, but rather “continuing what is working well and correcting what is not working”.
Within the scope of the organic and functional reform of the State’s central administration, The Institute for Educational Assessment (IAVE), the Directorate-General for Education (DGE), the PNL Mission Structure and the RBE coordinating office were extinguished.
At the same time, it was created the Institute of Education, Quality and Assessment (EDUQA), which became part of those four entitieswhich raised criticism and fears that the Government was ending or could harm the effectiveness of the two projects linked to reading, in a country where reading and literacy rates are low.