Predictors of Secondary Education Completion across Portuguese Municipalities: Evidence from the 2009–2018 Period

Our overriding goal was to understand territorial inequalities regarding secondary school completion by testing which contextual factors and educational resources are associated with their change in high- and low-density Portuguese municipalities. Our analysis covered the time between 2009 and 2018, including both the economic crisis and the economic recovery period. Drawing mostly on publicly available data from 253 municipalities and following a Linear Mixed Model approach, we found that low-density municipalities depicted significantly greater levels of secondary school attainment by 2013 compared to high-density municipalities. Moreover, growing unemployment rates were associated with a reduction in secondary school completion rates across the assessed time points. Contrary to our expectations, higher rates of permanent teachers were associated with worse rates of secondary school completion. In addition, we found a significant increase in the rates of secondary school conclusion at higher levels of preschool enrollment among high-density municipalities. Our discussion counteracts the usual overstating of vulnerable territories’ worse educational indicators. We also underline the importance of improving secondary education indicators for reducing structural inequalities in the school-to-work transition in less affluent territories and pinpoint the importance of implementing policies, such as improving access to preschool education in Portuguese high-density municipalities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Teachers’ digital competences in the first educational policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in four countries

With the sudden widespread closure of schools since February-March 2020 due to the physical distancing measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital competences became a focus of attention, being of central importance to the swift and equitable transition to the various forms of emergency remote teaching implemented throughout the world as a strategy to insure continuity in education. This almost instantaneous mass shift to teaching online has made transparent great disparities in how digital competences – particularly those of teachers - were conceptualized, taught and assessed within various educational programs. We present a comparative analysis of the approaches to teachers’ learning and professional development that state and non-state actors in four Central and East European countries have articulated in the first months of COVID-19 related lockdown. We take a Critical Frame Analysis approach to exploring the roles played by state and non-state actors in the four countries in conceptually framing the relationship between the digital competences required in emergency remote teaching and teachers’ learning and professional development at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. It is suggested that the educational policy debate at the beginning of the crisis rendered visible: a) that this massive sudden shift required understanding digitalization as a complex multifaceted process requiring levels of digital and pedagogical competence teachers were unlikely to have previously developed; b) that addressing these issues through short-term interventions would only exacerbate the risk of ignoring arising equity issues; c) that situating emergency measures in the context of potential medium and long-term developments could open opportunities to explore mainstreaming the digitalization of education and promoting blended learning, as well as offer a better perspective on issues of digital poverty and the inequitable impact of not addressing it adequately will have in the futur

Public Employment Services' Responses to the Pandemic: Examples from Portugal, Bulgaria, and Lithuania

The Covid‐19 pandemic provoked critical changes to welfare in Europe, requiring the dematerialisation of programmes and services while relying mainly on remote support. This study aims to present insights into how European public employment services have coped and adapted to the pandemic challenges, particularly regarding the digitalisation and delivery of services to young people in rural areas. It focuses on three case studies from distinct European regions: Portugal, Bulgaria, and Lithuania. It is based on an exploratory survey of public employment services national offices and qualitative data collected from public employment services offices in rural settings. It highlights the advantages and dangers of the adoption of digitalisation processes, namely considering literacy and accessibility in diverse contexts. It concludes that despite cultural and regional differences, all three countries evidenced an acceleration in service provision due to digitalisation and were capable of adjusting their practices to remote delivery. However, rural areas faced delays due to poor infrastructure, and after the pandemic, public employment privileged on‐site delivery, since it is considered more effective in the training and counselling of young people.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rural NEETs: Pathways Through Formal and Non-formal Education

Formal and non-formal education often constitute the first line of engage-ment in supporting Rural young people Not in Employment, nor in Education, or Training (NEET). However, it is not always the case that such interventions are widely documented. This chapter aims to uncover best practice interventions for the educational inclusion of rural NEETs building upon an emergent body of work in order to frame the identification of five case studies across Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Albania, Portugal. EU and non-EU member states were included to offer a diverse set of examples. Based on Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model and data triangulation, elements that prevent rural youth from entering or staying in NEET status were identified. Our work shows that each formal or nonformal education learning intervention or reform mobilizes different levels of the bioecological framework and has an important function in shaping NEETs or at-risk youth support systems. Educational interventions that directly target young people can improve the likelihood of a positive outcome when they are context specific. In addition, these interventions make it possible to see the potential of different educational methods in supporting rural young people, when that contextualization stems directly from the young person’s perspectives and his/her perceived needs