Western European
higher education systems remained, in general, subject to strong State
regulation and the existence of private institutions remained minimal
in most of these systems. The only significant exception to this Western
European pattern is the Portuguese higher education system, where
a very large private sub-sector developed during the last two decades.
Until the 1974 revolution the Portuguese higher education system was
clearly an elite system: a very low rate of enrolment, significant
regional concentration of supply, an almost inexistent vocational
sector, and a regressive socio-economic recruitment in its student
population. The political and social changes brought by the revolution
created a very strong pressure for structural changes and expansion
of the system. In the mid-eighties, the expansion of the system was
regarded as a policy priority and private higher education was regarded
as a crucial instrument in that respect (the only non-public institution
was then the Catholic University, which had been established in the
early seventies).
The analysis of
the growth of enrolments during the last decades confirms the profound
transformation of the system during that period and the overall pattern
of rapid expansion (see section on data). The system's expansion consolidated
important structural changes with the strengthening of the non-university
sector and of the private sector. From the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties,
private higher education became the fast-growing sub-sector. The rapid
and significant development of the private sector created important
regulatory challenges which led to the General Law on Private and
Cooperative HE of 1994 (see section of Laws).
Since the mid-nineties
the system has stabilized in terms of its size and nowadays the emphasis
in terms of policy is in improving its quality and effectiveness rather
than on an overall expansion. It is in this new context that was published
the Basic Law of Higher Education Funding of Higher Education
(see section on laws), which places a greater emphasis on cost-sharing
and in quality improvement.
After a massive
expansion private higher education faced far more difficult times
since the mid-nineties. The stabilization and then the slight decline
in the number of applications to higher education, plus the steady
expansion of public higher education, has reduced the pool of potential
candidates to private HEIs. Moreover, the geographical concentration
of private HEIs made it more difficult to these institutions to find
alternative ways to attract students. Most private institutions are
located in the capital area (Lisbon) and in the second largest city
(Porto).
Enrolments in
any part of the system are dominantly at the undergraduate, on-site
and full-time categories. All higher education institutions in Portugal
offer learning on site. There is only one distance learning institution,
which is a public university that focuses its activities in promoting
postgraduate and lifelong learning training for basic and secondary
teachers. Most higher education institutions (private and public)
only enroll students on a full-time basis. The growing but still small
proportion of postgraduate students is basically limited to the public
university sub-sector. Due to their vocational ethos, polytechnic
institutions were not allowed in general to award postgraduate degrees
and therefore only in very special cases can be found postgraduate
students in those institutions. Private institutions remained almost
exclusively focused on undergraduate programs. Their recent nature,
their poor emphasis on research activity, and the more demanding requirements,
in terms of qualification of teaching staff, to start a postgraduate
program, all contribute to explain that situation.
There is still
very limited information on the private sector of higher education,
besides that referring to student enrolments and graduates. The private
institutions do not release publicly any data referring to their financial
situation or to the teaching staff. The latter was due to the fact
than when most private institutions were established, the context
of rapid expansion and the lax regulation of the system stimulated
them to use staff from public institutions on a moonlighting basis.
This led to significant tension and controversies, especially with
public institutions. Nowadays, they are obliged to submit their list
of staff to the Ministry of Higher Education but this information
is not readily available.
