Author: Francisco de Oliveira, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I   The story of teaching Classics in Portugal
The teaching of Latin is documented since the time of Portuguese independence in the twelfth century and it reached a high level in the sixteenth century, in which time the development of the language and of the vernacular literature owed a lot to the humanist movement. In the mid eighteenth century, the expulsion of the Jesuits, followers of Aristotelism who had previously dominated the educational system, favoured the Oratorians, with their new methods and books. The teaching of Latin and of some Greek was standardised then for almost all the kingdom, though knowledge of Greek was no longer required for entry to university, when students came from places where they had no teacher. In the nineteenth century, classical influence began to suffer somewhat in the spheres of Law and Medicine, where the Galenic tradition was in decline. The situation of classical languages declined so much that in 1894, Gonçalves Guimarães foresaw the suppression of its study. In the twentieth century, teaching reforms at the end of the 1960s originally brought about an increase in the number of Latin and Greek students. However, the net result, due to changes in the educational system since the 1990s has caused a great setback, worsened by an enormous decrease in the demographic. The present situation is truly alarming, as much in primary and secondary teaching as in the universities.

II   The modern secondary school system in Portugal
Nowadays, the 9-year compulsory education programme (it will be 12 years, starting from 2004-2005) is standardised by unified basic teaching, until the age of fifteen years, in which  classical material has no part. The option of doing Latin (Greek is practically moribund) was given to students of fifteen years, who enrolled in the 10th Year in one of the four groups of disciplines, the IV - Humanities. There they could have two or, in the case of those wanting to follow classical languages at university, three years of Latin or Greek.

Starting from 2004/2005, the choice will be still more restricted, because Latin just appears in the syllabus of Languages and Literature, one of fifteen new groups of disciplines offered - and always as an option, never as compulsory subject. On this syllabus, students can choose Latin as an option (for 3 90 minute lessons a week), as a two year course (10th and 11th or 11th and 12th years). Few students will opt for a third year learning Latin. Concerning  Greek, there will be only the possibility of an optional course, in the 12th Year.

The new reorganisation of the school system, dictated essentially by the need for rationalisation, will restrict the number of schools that can offer Latin or Greek; and even in those schools, no subject can work with less than fifteen students, which will reduce even more the number of students, that has already been decreasing.

In fact, from 1994/1995 to 2001/2002, the number of Latin students passed from 17,453 to 7,374; in 2001 there were only 282 Greek students in the whole country. In spite of a lack of updated statistics, the situation continues to get worse. 

In Portugal, public and private schools offer secondary education. Although the private schools have an increasingly larger percentage of students, that is hardly relevant for the teaching of classical languages, because all students have to submit to final national examinations based on the same program, the national curriculum.

III   Classical subjects within the secondary system of Portugal
The national Latin and Greek programmes (from the 10th to the 12th Year) include civilisation themes (everyday life, social and political organisation) and they give few opportunities to  teachers to use their initiative to vary the authors imposed by the national programmes, predominantly classical ones. Classical Civilisation or Ancient History do not exist as subjects in their own right in the secondary school system.  Recently, some teaching professionals recommended the opening of a new classical subject to be offered as an option at earlier levels (for students below 15 years), but in the format of an extracurricular club or workshop.

The final national examination for students of 17 years lasts about 120 minutes, and consists in translating mainly Cicero, Horace and Virgil in Latin, and Lucian, Plato or Xenophon in Greek (worth up to 60% of the total), morphology and syntax (worth up to 30%), Portuguese to Latin or Greek translation, Latin or Greek to Portuguese vocabulary (10%), questions of culture and history (10%).

Until the middle of the 1970s the manuals used were single books, imposed by the government on the whole country (one for Greek, another for Latin). These were just anthologies of texts that the teachers explored in their own ways in class. Starting from that time, three or four new Latin manuals appeared. In the beginning of the academic year, at an area meeting, teachers choose which one of the manuals will be adopted for all the teachers and students of the school.

IV   How to become a teacher of Classics in Portugal
Since 1986 the training of future teachers of classical languages is made by the universities, in courses whose duration varies from five to six years, including a year of teaching practice accompanied by supervisors from secondary schools and from higher education. After that experience, the interested ones apply for work within two subject groups of secondary school teaching but nowadays professional opportunities for teachers are almost non-existent.

Because of the system, an inadequacy exists between the experience at the universities and the groups of subjects within secondary school teaching. This situation creates another problem, namely that from the Classics graduates, teachers with minimum experience in Latin or none in Greek can be placed in schools teaching Latin. Due to the Bologna agreement, universities are preparing a new curriculum of teacher training (maybe 3+2 years).

V   Further information
Despite of the existence of magazines dedicated to the teaching of classical languages at secondary school (Boletim de Estudos Clássicos in Coimbra and Classica in Lisbon), there is no specialised website in Portugal, so the Portuguese appeal to other international ones. In higher education, besides the distance teaching programs of the Universidade Aberta (Open University), co-operation exists in international projects or even in national experiences, like Sapere Aude in the Universidade do Minho (Minho's University).