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DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 395 /XI/2.

"It recommends the Government to Undergo An Urgent Review to the Study Grants Attribution System to the Students of Higher Education"

MOTIVATION

No student should be barred from accessing and attending higher education for reasons

economic. This is a basilar principle, of realizing the principle of equality of

opportunities, that our society should not betray.

In parallel, all the studies point to a common conclusion: the defining of the

national economy, and the inability of Portugal to create wealth, among other reasons, is due

in a lot to the reduced qualification of the population, particularly as regards the

percentage of the same with higher education. It matters to evolve rapidly in the formation of

human capital capable of leading the future of the Country, in a situation that puts tremendous

challenges to Higher Education, as in it we simultaneously find the following set of

realities:

1) Need to see doubled, over the course of a decade, the percentage of the population

with ages between the ages of 30 and 34 that is holder of training

top, so as to achieve up to 2020 the ambitiated value of 40%, in alignment

with the EUROPE 2020 strategy;

2) A reality evidenced by all international studies, namely

those who are periodically conducted by the OECD, translates to the fact that Portugal

be one of the countries where Higher Education's frequency tuition fees have values

higher, at the same time as the contribution of households to finance

of Higher Education is very appreciable, and yet also where the percentage of

students who rely on support from School Social Action is from the most reduced, being the

value annually invested in Study Grants diminished in the face of the generality of the

Member States of the European Union;

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3) The families face over the course of this academic year, 2010/2011, for the reasons that

are known, moments of particular economic difficulty, arising from

historical maximums recorded in the unemployment rate, tax increases,

wage decreases, price rises, and reduction of social supports made available;

4) In this context, perhaps more than ever, it matters to strengthen all the mechanisms

directed to ensure that effectively no student cees to attend the

Higher education for economic reasons, ensuring that commitments in this

sense made by the Government to be fully realized in practice.

This conjugation of factors imposed that such sensitive matter, as is always the case with

School Social Action in Higher Education, be the target of redoubled attention, priority and betting,

owing to the allocation of Scholarships has been given special attention, timely management,

effective and competent, attending to the circumstances lived in the Country.

CURRENT SITUATION

Unfortunately, contrary to what you referred to above, the whole process of redefining the

Scholarship Award of Study Grants to students of Higher Education, throughout the academic year

2010/2011, it was conducted in a disastrous way, translating so far into a

significant disturbance, with particular focus on the sections of the population more

in need, significant reduction in the number of fellows as well as in the average value of

scholarships awarded. That is, justly the reverse of what was the minimum demanded face to the

national situation.

In spite of the numerous warnings and constant insistence made, particularly in the

Assembly of the Republic, by the PSD, as well as by other parties, the Government

has shown to be incapable of managing this process with a minimum of competence, efficiency or

effectiveness, and it is possible to note that none of the commitments it has made,

particularly at the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, it would come to fruition.

In particular, the following delays, gaps and incongruities are to be highlighted:

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1) Despite the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education tottering already more than

4,500 days of governing functions, in that same quality, and of coming advertise, by the

less since the year 2006, be it your intention to carry out a review of the system of

assignment of Study Grants, apparently no work minimally

consistent on this matter, which is in the public domain, was carried out;

2) Only the approval of the Decree Law 70/2010, appreciated in Council of Ministers that

took place on May 13, 2010, seems to have determined the start of initiative

conducive to the definition of new rules associated with the assignment of Study Grants in the

Higher Education;

3) Despite numerous insistence carried out, particularly by the PSD, warning to

the need to see planned in a timely manner the allocation of Study Grants in the

lective year 2010/2011, before the start of the same, the Ministry of Science,

Technology and Higher Education only belatedly started to worry about this

subject;

4) At the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, Mr. Minister stated that he would

finally ready a new fellowship regulation by mid-August 2010, the

that did not come to succeeding as it chose to make a principled Regulation

general, followed by Technical Standards that would only come to be approved in mid-

October, therefore already in full swing of the academic year 2010/2011;

5) At the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, the Minister has assumed that the new

scholarship allocation system would be fully implemented in the months of

November and December 2010, which did not succeed, as at the end of January

of 2011 there were still around 20,000 applications from students for analyzing, existing

institutions that only in the month of March 2011, with the second semester taking place,

will end the process of appreciation of them;

6) At the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, the Minister informed that the

generality of the fellows over the course of the academic year 2009/2010 would maintain the status of

bubbles in the present academic year, less from the situations in which they were not

verified the conditions of appeal, by integrating familiar aggregates with

heritage higher than 100,000 €, so the number of existing scholarship

should be close to that registered in 2009/2010 (year on which there were about 73,000

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bakers). The application of the new scholarship allocation system has been translated into a

quite different reality, as the exclusion rates of candidates rose to 30-35%

of the applications submitted, and not even the transitional arrangements

prevent the number of fellows from coming to suffer a break of more than 10,000

students, this in a year of strong caries of the families and in which it is intended to have more

20,000 students to attend Higher Education. It is still verifies that, contrary

by the government asserted, the overwhelming majority of unapproved applications are

a duty to its exclusion to aspects that nothing relates to the default of the

conditions of appeal;

7) The Government has ensured that the values of the awarded scholarships would not suffer

any significant cut, but what is recorded is a decrease in the average value of the

grants awarded, which figure in a break of 5-10% in the face of the equivalent value

relating to the academic year 2009/2010;

8) After plenty of insistence, the Minister assured at the headquarters of the Education Commission and

Science that the value intended for School Social Action scholarships, within the framework of

Higher education, for the present academic year, would be exactly the same as the verified in the

academic year 2009/2010, totaling 147 million euros. This is not being realized,

as it simultaneously assists in a reduction located in at least 10-

15% of the total universe of scholarship of Higher Education, as well as a reduction of 5-

10% of the average value of the grants awarded, which corresponds to a real decrease

estimated at 20-30 million euros, in the face of the initially pointed value of 147

millions of euros to be made available for scholarships;

9) Mr. Minister stated, at the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, that it would not be

requested the return of the values paid in advance to candidates who thereafter, to the

under the new technical standards, they have come to see refused the allocation of a grant from

study, but it is known that these discards are being requested, not being at all

of course what is the legal basis that supports an eventual non-return of the values

received;

10) Mr. Minister, at the headquarters of the Committee on Education and Science, was manifestly

incapable of justifying all these incongruities, gaps and incompetence, of

acknowledge the mistakes made, which are now manifestly evident, or of

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indicate concrete ways to overcome the situations of manifest injustice

arising from the way in which the Government has addressed this issue.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Of all the above said, it follows that we are in a year in which it becomes

especially relevant to give an adequate and redoubled attention to the allocation of scholarships

study to the students of Higher Education, since soon because it is a lective year in which the

families clash with special difficulties, in parallel with an increase in the number

of students who attend higher courses, estimated by the Government itself in the existence of

more 20,000 students, so the estimated decrease of more than 10,000 fellows

hardly compagates with the aim of ensuring that no student can be excluded

of Higher Education on economic grounds.

In the face of the manifest incapacity evidenced by the Minister of Science, Technology and Teaching

Superior, both with regard to an appropriate and timely resolution of the problems,

either in the fulfillment of the objectives by themselves assumed, or still in the supply of

concrete answers in what it touches to justify the occurred or present the solutions that it thinks

adopt to overcome the problems created, understands the Assembly of the Republic

timely to submit a set of recommendations to the Government on this matter.

In these terms, the Assembly of the Republic resolves, under the provisions of paragraph 5 of the article

166 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, on the basis of the argumentation already exposed,

recommend to the Government to proceed to the introduction of a set of urgent amendments in the

allocation of Study Grants of the School Social Action aimed at students of Higher Education,

which then enunciate:

1. The Government shall ensure that the value approved by the Assembly of the Republic, through

of the State Budget, and complemented by community funds, translates,

as assumed by the Mr. Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, at the

effective allocation of a financial volume of not less than EUR 147 million in

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scholarships from the School Social Action for students of Higher Education in the academic year

2010/2011.

2. The Government must urgently review technical standards, so that the

income arising from pensions and social benefits is the target of a

treatment identical to what is applied to labour earnings, with a basis of

incidence situated therefore equally at 85% of the respective value.

3. The Government must urgently review technical standards, so as to eliminate situations

where the way in which the criteria for the clearance of school use, to

effects of the allocation of scholarships, easily shows itself to be dissuitable, through the

consideration of a combination of absolute and percentage ECTS values in the

definition of minimum school use criteria for the present school year,

as well as the consideration of situations where there have been changes of course or of

cycle of studies.

4. The Government must urgently review the technical standards, in them contemplating

duly the existence of add-ons to the values of the scholarships that

are appropriate, particularly in the case of accommodation expenses or

transport-specific supports for non-dislocated pupils.

5. The Government should urgently review technical standards, so as to clarify

unequivocally, giving with this the due legal support, the conditions in which it won't

be asked for any return of monies assigned to students who subsequently

came to be excluded from the allocation of any scholarship.

6. The Government must start from an in-depth work already, with active involvement

of all relevant partners, including the specialist section of social action of the

Council Coordinator of Higher Education, and taking into consideration the initiative of the

Assembly of the Republic, of parliamentary appreciation of the Decree Law 70/2010, in the

a sense of seeing redefined a new system of scholarship allocation, to be applied in the

academic year 2011/2012, where improvements, corrections and changes are made

arising from the currently existing gaps, which the Government has been unable to prevent,

and which have become evident with the corresponding atribulated application, along the

present academic year 2010/2011, with this correcting also manifests situations

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of social injustice, such as those arising from situations arising from the

income and heritage of commercial companies that interconnect with

certain households, as well as ensuring effective stability

multiannual allocation of scholarships over a full course of study.

Palace of S. Bento, February 8, 2011

The Deputies,