"There is absolutely no reason to change the calendar for access to Higher Education," said Fernando Alexandre, in response to parliamentary groups during the urgent debate requested by the PCP on the national secondary school exams.

National exams graded

Before the start of the debate, the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation had already confirmed, in a statement to journalists, that all national secondary school exams have been graded and that, therefore, the results will be posted by the end of the day.

In front of the chamber, the governor added that the National Examination Board (JNE) is now responsible for sending the grades for more than 300,000 exams taken by 11th- and 12th-grade students to schools.

New correction format

For the first time this year, the national high school exams were corrected digitally, but the process has encountered technical issues from the start, forcing the Ministry to postpone the initially planned deadlines.

Over three weeks, teachers reported delays in making the exams available, errors in digitising the answers, and difficulties with the grading platform.

Existence of errors

Fernando Alexandre again acknowledged the existence of errors, but assured that the problems have been corrected and will not be repeated during the second phase, whose exams will be graded using the same model.

"This does not mean that there are no improvement processes for next year," he noted, adding that the digitisation of the national exam grading processes "is essential."

The Minister also emphasised that, for the first time this year, copies of the graded exams will be sent to students, a measure that was not initially planned but was announced two weeks ago with the aim of ensuring the reliability and transparency of the system.

Automatic access

Fernando Alexandre stated in parliament that "all students will have automatic access," contradicting, however, the information from his office, which, on 16 July, reported that it is up to the schools to decide whether to make available to all students a copy of the exams taken without the parents requesting to consult the test.

"Students will have access to their digitised exam in PDF format through the schools. This sending can be initiated by the school or at the student's request," the secretariat said the day before.