One of the main problems of the Portuguese education system isn't the lack of quality of schools, teachers or anything else. The main problem is the lack of interest of the students. A Portuguese student usually doesn't mind if he has bad marks. The main concern is to get a positive mark… one that allows him to pass the class, and if he doesn't pass the class, it won't be a great shame, it won't be a big deal and he won't be seen as a failure.

It's true that nobody likes to fail, but it's also true that everyone has a different perspective of failure, and that for the majority of the Portuguese students the definition of failure isn't the bad marks or the losing one year in school, but the lack of social acceptance. Unfortunately the social acceptance isn't achieved (at least in Portugal) by having great marks, but for having a great mobile, a cool outfit, or being able to drink large quantities of alcohol in a very short period of time.

The problem is more obvious during the adolescence, but the beginning of the problem comes from childhood. The Portuguese public schools don't have the level of demand that they should have, and parents are also not free of guilt. There are two great problems on primary school. The first one is the lack of knowledge / availability of parents to accompany their children studies and the second is the low demand of schools with their students.

I'm not defending a military kind of school for Portugal , but there is a middle term between what happens in a military school and what happens in a Portuguese public school.

There should also be a more effective accompany of students, with support classes if their teachers saw that they wore staying behind.

I don't know how to achieve all this… but I know one thing, if the education system doesn't change, we'll continue to stay on the “tail of Europe ”.