The emergence of Accountability in the Portuguese Education System

Abstract

The issue of accountability has gained a renewed social, political and educational importance. This is one of the reasons why it should continue to be an object of theoretical and conceptual reflection, particularly in the social sciences. Regarding, more specifically, education, the contributions that have the issue of accountability at their core are still few, particularly in countries where democratic political regimes are relatively recent. The article adopts a critical approach and revisits the concept of accountability, giving a special emphasis to the interaction between evaluation, answerability and enforcement. This brief theoretical and conceptual framework is then applied to some aspects of the Portuguese educational reality and we conclude that the issue of accountability is still, in this specific context, relatively recent and uncertain