Investment RE-C06-i03

Portugal needs to increase the educational and vocational qualifications of its adult population, develop skills for innovation and industrial renewal, adjusting supply to the transformation of labour markets and new employability requirements, and promote awareness of the importance of adult literacy among employers and employees.

As part of this programme, three complementary instruments will be introduced within the scope of promoting lifelong learning: two as part of the Qualifica Programme, the National Plan for Adult Literacy (€40m) and the Qualifica Accelerator (€55m), and a third, the Adult Impulse (€130m), within higher education and aimed at higher education institutes, including universities and polytechnics in coordination with public and private employers.

Geared towards working age adults, both employed and unemployed, with low qualification levels, the goal is to create 225 local projects promoting qualifications at levels B1/B2/B3 by 2025, in order to implement the National Plan for Adult Literacy. Support will also be provided to adults who are in the consolidated stages of the RVCC processes, aiming to have 100,000 adults qualified in this way by 2025, within the Qualifica Accelerator framework.

This programme also seeks to enhance adult training and promote lifelong learning in Portugal, encouraging professional postgraduate training, strengthening short higher education courses within the polytechnic system and setting up 10 postgraduate schools in collaboration with businesses, for short postgraduate courses, with at least four such schools in the interior of the country.

The Adult Impulse Programme seeks to support the conversion and updating of the skills of working age adults in short-term higher education (university and polytechnic) courses at undergraduate and/or postgraduate level, as well as lifelong training in association with public and private employers, including:

1.  Support programmes, for undergraduate and postgraduate “schools” and/or “alliances”, in partnership with employers (including postgraduate diplomas and master’s degrees);
2.  Promotion of a network of at least ten postgraduate training “schools” and/or “alliances” with at least four in the interior of the country by the third quarter of 2023, in the form of partnerships between higher education institutes and employers.

The programme will be implemented jointly with the STEAM Youth Impulse Programme through a single, open and competitive tender. The programme will be available from the 2021-22 academic year and is due to run until the end of the 2025-26 academic year, with the aim of supporting at least 23,000 participants.