About three thousand students from 215 Portuguese schools participated in the 2nd edition of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) which assessed two areas: Computer Literacy and Information and Computational Thinking in more than 46,000 students from 12 countries and two education systems.

Result: Only 1% of Portuguese young people were able to select the most relevant information and were able to assess the usefulness and reliability of the information to create information products. Of the 46,000 students, only 2% demonstrated the ability to critically access 'online' information.

In Tuesday's report, researchers question the extent to which young people are prepared to study, work and live in a digital world. In Portugal, for example, only 20% of Portuguese students have shown that they can work independently with computers.

Almost half of them were able to perform only "elementary and explicit tasks" of collecting and managing information: 46% of Portuguese young people still "need help" when using computers to research, create or communicate.

In view of these results, researchers warn that it is not enough to deliver equipment to students and teachers and leave them alone: it is necessary to teach how to use it.

Speaking to Lusa, the Deputy Secretary of State and Education, João Costa, recalled some programmes that the Ministry launched in schools during the previous mandate.

"With the evolution of technology, the more excluded a student is, the greater the inequality in the future," said João Costa, recognizing that the digital society is one of the concerns mirrored in the Government program.

The students say that it was at school that they learned to look for information on the Internet, to understand if it was credible or relevant to include in a job. Again, the national figures do not differ much from the average of the other countries.

In addition to the Portuguese, students from Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Moscow, Kazakhstan, South Korea, the United States of America, Chile, Uruguay and North Rhine-Westphalia participated in the study.

The study shows that the difference between countries is smaller than the differences within each country between the best and the worst students. The study also shows that students' socio-economic conditions, years of computer use experience and access to computers at home all play a crucial role in the results.