Marçal Grilo. “I'm a kickback enthusiast”

There was a drop in the number of subscribers, nearly 44,000, down 12% from the previous year. How do you explain this drop? Will we pay the bill later?

I think this is normal. The pandemic regime is over, and we can't do away with end-of-secondary exams. That would be completely absurd and a huge step backward. We'll be paying dearly for that in the future.

Do the exams ultimately serve to make a selection?

It's not a matter of selection, it's a matter of quality. Access to higher education must meet certain criteria and also ensure that those entering have some guarantee and demonstrate sufficient quality to gain access. However, I believe the numbers shouldn't be compared with those of 2023 and 2024, or even 2022. They should be compared with the numbers recorded before the pandemic, because the growth that occurred was clearly the result of a slowdown in quality requirements, and we know that quality is fundamental. I remember that when exams were first held in 1996, it was a gigantic step. I don't know why people dread exams; they've always been there and exist everywhere. The exam is a final test of a course, of a path one is following, and it's obviously a way to, on the one hand, guarantee a minimum level of quality, and on the other, to have an idea of ​​whether the assessment systems are working or not.

Was the idea created that everyone could go to Higher Education?

The idea is not to want them to go or not go. Those who should go will go.

The Minister of Education stressed that 'access to Higher Education is an aspiration for many Portuguese people, but it is not the only possible path'...

We need to look at this with some knowledge and some distance. At the end of World War II, the Americans wanted to make a massive influx into higher education. At that time, President Roosevelt, in 1944, enacted something called the GI Bill, which was a law that worked and had a huge impact on higher education and American life. It meant that everyone, every soldier, everyone who served in the military, whether in Europe or the Pacific, at the end of their service had the right to enter a higher education institution. Access wasn't determined by exams, but by living conditions, because many people weren't able to go on to higher education. That was an absolutely extraordinary movement, because World War II was also an absolutely extraordinary event. But we don't have a situation like that; we don't have any facts here that are affecting Portuguese youth that would lead us to make such a decision. We need qualified people, highly qualified people. We need a higher education system capable of competing with existing systems across Europe, the world, but especially in Europe. We need a diversified system, offering various types of courses, like the ones we already have: shorter courses, longer courses, polytechnics, university courses, master's degrees, doctorates, etc. The system has diversified significantly since the 1980s, and that's a good thing for meeting the country's needs. Therefore, I think what's happening is normal, and I don't see anything extraordinary about it.

But some point to the lack of support and the price of accommodation as obstacles to accessing higher education.

That's another story entirely, and it has nothing to do with exams or quality; it has to do with conditions. And here I think a major effort needs to be made in several areas, particularly the conditions provided by school social action, which is absolutely essential. It's crucial to have the conditions to support the largest possible number of students who don't have the financial means to attend higher education.

There are those who get good results in exams, but then don't have the financial means to continue.

There are also many who enter and struggle financially, but then receive support and manage to complete their courses. We always tend to exaggerate things; it's not entirely true that people with fewer resources can't make it. Some do, many don't, but it's those who do that we need to pay more attention to. We also need to pay attention to those who are left out because they can't afford to study, because they can't find a room, because they can't afford to live, because they can't afford transportation, or because they can't afford a number of other things. That's where the state's efforts must be enormous, recognizing the merits of students and supporting them. And the issue of accommodation is very important. Universities should be given the financial means to provide rooms—that is, access to public rooms in university buildings, for example, or through hiring. There are many ways to expand the range of housing available so that children have the means to live, because what's happening in some cities—I don't have data on this and I don't like to talk about it—is that room prices in Lisbon have become unbearable because there are so few. And, if demand is high and supply is low, it's clear that prices will rise. This is very negative for families and for the students themselves, who can't afford it. I admit that there are students who have applied, who have been accepted, and who then don't have the means to fill the vacancies.

Regarding the interior, how do you see the drop in the number of subscribers?

More serious and worthy of concern is that there are courses that are of great interest to the country in training young people but are not in high demand. For example, the lack of demand for Engineering courses at polytechnics is worrying. There are countless unfilled positions in Engineering and even in Computer Science, which seems very negative to me. The country needs people who can make, design, and build in sensitive areas, such as Engineering. The same is true in Agriculture, which shows that there is a crisis in the agricultural sector. And courses, especially in the interior, have many vacancies, and that is where it is worthwhile to develop some pedagogy in this area. What happened, for example, to Engineering during the 2007-2008 crisis? The construction sector came to a standstill, and there were now many vacancies throughout Civil Engineering. This is serious, because Civil Engineering is not just for building houses; it is for many other things. Civil engineers have responsibilities in many areas, in maintenance, railways, bridges, everything that is a work of art in the construction sense.

And how do you see the issue of unfreezing tuition fees?

I think this is a great thing, as long as it's offset by much stronger school social action than we currently have. Thirty years ago, the debate was precisely this: the problem isn't tuition fees, the problem is school social action, so that no one is left behind, so that no one says they can't get into higher education because they can't afford the tuition. This is what can't happen. The tuition cut was entirely gratuitous and demagogic, because it's not the tuition fees that prevent people from studying; what prevents people from studying are the conditions students face, whether in terms of transportation, housing, meals, books, or computers. School social action is extremely important in a country with the salaries it has. Salaries are very low. Families sometimes make great efforts to send their children to school. Often, they have to send their children to school away from home. One of the reasons why some inland institutions have many students is because, first, the standard of living is cheaper, not as expensive, and second, they are closer. The existence of these institutions is crucial, as it's the way to retain the country's population in inland areas. If we take Bragança, Guarda, Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Tomar, Évora, and Beja, for example, these are cities that owe a great deal to the existence of higher education. Something that only existed since 1973. Until 1973, none of these cities had higher education, and this gave a huge boost to cities like these. For example, the city of Castelo Branco has about 35,000 inhabitants, but has an institution that can accommodate five, six, or seven thousand students. It's crucial to consider that higher education is also a way to revitalize these inland areas. But, returning to your question about tuition fees, the question isn't whether they're higher or lower, but whether the state is willing to implement a system of social benefits that compensates for this and ensures that no student, I repeat, stops studying for economic or financial reasons. That should be the main concern.

We are talking about an annual increase of 13 euros.

The increase is symbolic, but it ultimately carries significant symbolism, in the sense that, in the minds of some people, especially those in certain political circles, tuition fees should disappear. Tuition fees shouldn't disappear; they should exist. What you gain through higher education equips each student and is something they can take wherever they want. You can graduate here in Engineering, or Medicine, or Law, or Computer Science, or Aeronautics—whatever—and then you can take that knowledge and increased capacity you gain to Canada, Germany, the United States, Brazil, wherever you want. There's an individual benefit, and there's a societal benefit. I'm a fan of tuition fees; I think they continue to have the same validity they had 30 years ago when they were created in the form they exist today. What existed for two years was a bit pointless, because it was indexed to the IRS (Income Tax) and didn't work; it was technically flawed. The Government decided to increase it by 13 euros, from 697 to 710 euros, but the problem is not whether it went up too much or too little, it's that it let it go down, which was what was happening, because tuition fees had been cut perhaps two or three times during António Costa's first government, and in fact, reduced at the time against the wishes of the Minister of Science himself.

Universities also need funding.

It's not just about needing funding; there's a conceptual issue here. Higher education isn't free. The Constitution states that education should be free, and in 1998, the Constitutional Court ruled on this and said that paying for higher education wasn't unconstitutional, that it didn't contradict the Constitution. At the time, higher education cost the same as the minimum wage, if I remember correctly. And I think that was correct, as it is correct today.

The minister says that reducing tuition fees would be regressive because it would force society to pay for the education of those who had the privilege of attending.

This argument is 30 years old. There's nothing new about it. I've been using this argument for 30 years.