The Court of Auditors (TdC) has carried out an audit of the government programme that this year made free textbooks available to the approximately 500,000 children in the first and second cycles of schooling, and summarised its findings in a report that Lusa has now seen.

In the next school year, the measure is to be extended to all pupils in compulsory education attending public schools, and is estimated to cost about €145 million euros. However, the budget of the Institute for Financial Management of Education (IGeFE) for 2019 is only €47 million – that is, the funds cover only about one-third of what is needed.

The IGeFE budget only foresees the provision of manuals to children in the first and second cycles, but the state budget for 2019 foresees the programme’s extension up to the 12th and final year of compulsory schooling.

Given that fact, the TdC is now recommending to the minister of education, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, that he guarantee that the appropriations necessary for the implementation of the measure are written into the budget.

Indeed, under-budgeting is not just a problem for the future, since this school year the free distribution of manuals cost the state €29.8 million, when only €28.7 million had been budgeted, notes the report.

This difference was due to the fact that only manuals for first-cycle pupils were budgeted for, but the government had in the meantime decided to extend the measure to older pupils in the second cycle. In addition, in March 2019 the institute remained "indebted to bookstores [to the tune of] at least 3.1 million euros", according to the report.

However, the Ministry of Education has stressed that "the value identified as debt can only be the reflection of the time lag with the accounting register by the schools."

The rules state that payment to bookstores should have happened between September and October of last year, with the TdC stating that "insufficient budgeting [was the] determining factor for the existence of debt”.

Another of the problems mentioned in the audit is a malfunction of the online platforms dealing with the distribution of manuals. The consequence was the delay in the availability of the vouchers needed to pick up books, "damaging the effectiveness of the measure".

In view of the failings detected, the TdC recommends that the ministry move to ensure "the interoperability of the platforms of central services and schools, with updated information, [which is] essential to the effectiveness of the measure".

Before the Socialist government introduced the programme of free schoolbooks, it was normal in Portugal for parents to have to pay.

The TdC audit also found that fewer than 4% of manuals provided under the scheme were reused in the current school year, although the programme foresees their being used for at last three years.