Portuguese schools in the 21st century: Autonomy and participation

This paper analyses the educational situation in Portugal at the beginning of the 21st century, with a special focus on school autonomy and organisational management/administration models that not only engage families and communities in the strategic management of schools, but also affirm the director's leadership with a view to ensuring the best possible public education. Implementing such a model requires strengthening cooperation with municipalities and other local political institutions, with parents and their representative associations and also with the most representative forces of the respective community in the sports, cultural and entrepreneurial spheres. This new school management and organization model involves adopting pedagogical models that progressively introduce regional and local components in the curricula as well as communication and information technologies; aspects that are the foundation of a new learning paradigm and constitute an indelible mark of a new school.