Portugal 2016

ENQUADRAMENTO SOCIOECONÓMICO EDUCAÇÃO SOCIO-ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK EDUCATION 51 Unfavourable demographic developments also had an impact on the number of students enrolled in primary education, which has followed a downward trend since the 1991/92 school year, only interrupted in the three school years from 2005/06 to 2008/09. There was a considerable increase in adults enrolled in this period, driven by the System of Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competences (SRVCC), which temporarily raised the number of those enrolled. In the 2015/16 school year the number of persons enrolled accounted for 82.9% and 68.3% of those enrolled in 2000/01 and 1990 respectively. In upper secondary education the trend was the same as in basic education, and the same transitional situation was observed, although of a greater magnitude: the downward trend of the number of students enrolled since 1996/97 was surpassed by the impact of the SRVCC, which led to a strong and sudden increase in students enrolled in 2008/09 (approximately 42.0% more than in the previous school year). Thereafter, it resumed a downward trend, and in 2015/16 it reached a similar level to that recorded in 2000/01, but 14.4% above that recorded in 1990/91. The latter fact contrasts with the situation in basic education. As regards the number of students enrolled, private education played an increasingly more important role at all levels of primary and upper secondary education during the 2000/01-2009/10 decade. Up to 2009/10 its weight increased almost continuously at all levels of primary education, especially in lower secondary education (third cycle). From that school year onwards that trend was reversed and in the two most recent years there was a relative stabilisation in the number of students enrolled, corresponding to an average weight of close to 13.0% in the total. This notwithstanding, private schools had the lowest relative importance in basic education. Private schools showed a similar profile in secondary education, increasing up to 2008/09 (its weight in the total reached 24.0%, compared to 8.5% and 16.8% in 1990/91 and 2000/01 respectively), declining in the subsequent years, and stabilising in the two most recent years (the weight in total students enrolled in secondary education was 21.0% in 2016). Public and private pre-school education followed an overall expansion trend, but the former was more dynamic than the latter, with the public pre-school education network surpassing private education in terms of the number of students enrolled from 2000/01 onwards. Private education continued to follow a downward trend until 2012/13, increasing subsequently, reaching 47.1% of total students enrolled in 2015/16. The weight of private schools in tertiary education increased up to the end of the first half of the 1990s, declining afterwards. A maximum weight of 36.6% was reached in 1995/96, declining to 29.4% in 2000/01, to stand at 16.4% in 2016/17.