Existence of a national strategy

The Portuguese Constitution enshrines the right to culture for all citizens, in particular the right to freedom of cultural, intellectual, artistic and scientific creation and also the duty to preserve, defend and appreciate the cultural heritage (article 43, 73 and 78 of the Portuguese Constitution). This freedom comprises the right to invention, production and promotion of the scientific, literary or artistic work, including the protection of copyright.

According to the XXII Constitutional Government programme, investing in culture is investing in a society where creativity and innovation are paramount. These elements are vital for competitiveness today, having been developed in recent years a set of programmes and initiatives of protection and preservation of heritage and of promotion and enhancement of cultural activities, and some of which are targeted at young people. A country that believes in symbolic strength and economic potential of experiencing culture is a country that allows each individual to feel especially connected with its cultural heritage. Culture is not limited to its historical value, it is also a vehicle for transforming society and its territories promoting social and territorial cohesion.

The national policies in the field of creativity and culture have been implemented through a set of initiatives and measures framed in other national plans, operational programmes and public policies, in a intersectoral and interinstitutional perspective, with the development of cross-sectoral policies and measures in the various fields of government policies, such as education, youth, employment, tourism and involving a wide range of entities and public bodies. 

The national policies in the field of creativity and culture have been implemented through a set of initiatives and measures framed in other national plans, operational programmes and public policies, in a intersectoral and interinstitutional perspective, with the development of cross-sectoral policies and measures in the various fields of government policies, such as education, youth, employment, tourism and involving a wide range of entities and public bodies. 

At the national level, some strategic plans and documents can be highlighted, which are currently in effect in the field of culture and education:

•    Aesthetic and Artistic Education Programme

•    National Reading Plan

•    National Cinema Plan

•    National Arts Plan

•    National Youth Plan

In this strategy, the local administration is of particular importance, especially in the promotion and preservation of local heritage at the regional level, as a development strategy based on the decentralisation of resources and programmes, and investing in perspective of proximity. 

In this sense, locally, a wide range of municipalities develops a set of initiatives and programmes of dissemination and promotion of cultural activities targeted at the young population, mainly through municipal services under the supervision of the city councils of the field of youth and/or culture.

The cultural revitalisation at the local level is still based on a set of networks streamlined by the central power which is responsible for the promotion and support in developing various initiatives of cultural promotion, many of which are targeted at attracting and training young people as a strategy for involving new audiences:

• National Public Libraries Network (RNBP)
• Portuguese Archives Network (RPA)
• Portuguese Museums Network (RPM)

Scope and contents

The Aesthetic and Artistic Education Programme (PEEA) intends to develop an intervention plan to implement an integrated strategy, at national level, within Visual and Performing Arts in the school context.

Through a wide range of activities, the programme expects a progressive learning of knowledge integrated with different cultural universes, favouring the Development of Creativity, Aesthetic Sense and Contact with Different Cultural Universes.

PEEA seeks to promote arts and culture in the school universe, in partnership with the different Cultural Institutions, in order for children, teachers and families to develop a taste for art, create cultural habits and value art as a form of knowledge, which is of particular importance for the permanent development of the human being.

This programme materializes into three axes; fruition-contemplation, interpretation-reflexion and experimentation-creation, with the following purposes:

• Developing joint and mutually enriching actions between Schools and Institutions, anticipating Culture as a necessity in the educational process.
• Encouraging the aesthetics dimension in education through the appropriation of specific language of the various forms of art.
• Implementing dynamic, interactive and participating strategies, whose initiatives take on the idea of global education and integrated expressive and communicative meanings through a confluence of languages.
• Raising the awareness of teachers and families to the role of art in children's education and art's relationships to other fields of knowledge.
• Encouraging the knowledge of cultural and artistic heritage as a process of citizenship affirmation and a means to develop cultural literacy.
• Raising the awareness of the role of Art to the education of Man and the relationships that this domain has with other fields of knowledge.
• Encouraging the knowledge of cultural and artistic heritage as a process of citizenship affirmation and a means to develop cultural literacy.

National Reading Plan

As a strategic intervention targeted at the development of several literacies in various sectors of the population, the National Reading Plan 2027 adopts for this new stage the following guidelines:

• Creating a broad social commitment around the promotion of reading as political priority, with the goal of developing literacy and the strengthening of the population's reading habits;
• Launching programmes targeted at children, young people and adults that aim to promote the development of multiple literacies, specifically reading and writing, digital, and visual, scientific and technological information, in order to prepare the Portuguese population for the demands of the society of the XXI century;
• Reinforcing and diversifying the intervention aimed at the skills development of children and young people in the school context and of the adult population pursuing qualification;
• Encouraging a new type of intervention focused on the young adult and the adult population, in particular for the sectors of the population that have acquired low reading skills or that, for various reasons, have not acquired any at all throughout their lives;
• Implementing a set of actions to strengthen the reading and writing skills for the inclusion of people with special needs;
• Promoting relationships between reading, literature, arts, sciences and technology and promoting scientific, technological and artistic culture, in collaboration with institutions of science and culture;
• Encouraging the production and dissemination of academic content and studies about reading and writing;
• Promoting training projects for teachers, reading mediators, cultural agents and other actors;
• Strengthening the connection to society and local communities, notably through the mobilisation of literary and scientific circles and the media to the participation in promotion projects for reading and writing;
• Promoting the establishment of new partnerships and the implementation of concerted actions, with the support of national and international, public and private entities;
• Promoting inclusive, intercultural content and free of stereotypes that stimulate critical thinking and an active citizenship;
• Reinforcing the coordination between the National Public Libraries Network, the School Libraries Network and the libraries of higher education institutions.

National Cinema Plan

The National Cinema Plan established itself in a broad framework for the promotion of media literacy and the promotion of knowledge of cinematographic and audio-visual works, as instruments of expression and cultural diversity, of affirmation of the national identity and promotion of the Portuguese language and culture. Being effectively planned as a literacy plan for cinema and for the dissemination of national and global cinematographic works among the school audience, it intends to awaken in young people and the educational communities the habit of seeing and appreciating cinema as an art and cultural heritage.

In this context, the plan purses the following objectives:

• Training school audiences to ensure that they have basic instruments of "reading" and understanding of cinematographic and audio-visual works, awakening the pleasure for the habit of watching films throughout their lives;
• Valuing cinema as an art in schools and the rest of the educational community.

The NCP (PNC), within the scope of its mission, develops a training plan for teachers providing them with suitable means and knowledge for the development of this artistic field with the students, while valuing their pedagogical role as privileged mediators in this investment process in the integral training of children and young people. 

National Arts Plan (PNA)

Developed by the governing areas of Culture and Education, the National Arts Plan (PNA) aims to make the arts and culture more accessible to citizens, particularly children and young people, through the educational community, promoting participation, enjoyment and cultural creation, in a logic of inclusion and lifelong learning. It aims to encourage the cultural commitment of communities and organizations and to develop collaborative networks and partnerships with public and private entities, namely by working together with pre-existing plans, programs and networks.

PNA’s main goals:

• Articulate, enhance and expand the cultural offer and existing educational system, namely the one that mission, purposes and areas of intervention of following programs and plans;
• National Reading Plan; ii) National Cinema Plan; iii) Aesthetic and Artistic Education Program; iv) School Library Network Program; v) Portuguese Museum Network; b) Enable collaboration with public and private entities;
• Strengthen the involvement of the educational community in cultural activities;
• Encourage the approximation of citizens to the arts and continuously provide the diversity of aesthetic and artistic experiences;
• Foster collaboration between artists, educators, teachers and students in order to design strategies teaching and learning that promote an integrative curriculum based on management knowledge and experience cultural;
• Mobilize the articulation between equipment and cultural, social and professional agents;
• To favour the territorialisation of cultural policies mobilizing local resources such as relevant agents and process integrators teaching and learning;
• Expand the range of experiences and skills provided by schools, reinforcing the openness to the community and the world;
• Raise awareness of cultural institutions and their agents for the social and educational dimension of their mission;
• Contribute to the achievement of the areas of competencies regarding critical thinking and creative thinking, and aesthetic and artistic sensitivity on what concerns the Student Profile at the end of Compulsory Education;
• Promote knowledge, integration and encounter of cultures through the artistic manifestations and cultural backgrounds of different communities.

The National Youth Plan was created in August 2018 and its mission is to achieve a transversality of youth policies aiming to reinforce the special protection of young people, within the scope recommended in article 70 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

Considering that the Portuguese population between 15 and 29 years old represents 16% of the total, the XXI Constitutional Government is therefore committed to investing in youth, focusing on inter-ministerial articulation, namely with regard to education, employment and entrepreneurship, higher education, housing, birth, health, quality of life, sport, culture, the environment, agriculture, transport, social security sustainability, poverty alleviation, equality, inclusion and migration.

Responsible authority for the implementation of the strategy

The Aesthetic and Artistic Education Programme, in the school context, is an initiative of the Ministry of Education, carried out through the Artistic Education Team (EEA) of the Directorate General for Education (DGE).

The National Reading Plan is an inter-ministerial initiative that brings together the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Science and Technology and Higher Education and the Secretary of State for Local Authorities.  Within the framework of its responsibilities, it is of particular importance the cooperation with local authorities as well as the articulation of the School Libraries Network with the National Public Libraries Network and libraries of higher education institutions.

The National Cinema Plan results of a protocol between the Directorate General for Education, the Institute of Cinema and Audio-visual (ICA) and the Portuguese Cinematheque - Cinema Museum (Museu do Cinema).

The National Cinema Plan was created in 2013 and every school year establishes a set of goals to pursue, according to the evaluation carried out by the three entities that run this plan. It intends to be an entirely national plan.

The National Arts Plan is carried out by a mission structure, created in the dependence of the Culture and the Education Governance areas, accompanied by a scientific committee.

The National Youth Plan is coordinated by the Portuguese Institute for Sport and Youth, I. P..

Revisions/updates

The Aesthetic and Artistic Education Programme was developed in 2010 by a group of Portuguese experts.  Initially, it was integrated in the Educational Service of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Later on, the programme was recognized by the Ministry of Education and integrated in the education system, and an Aesthetic and Artistic Education Team became responsible for its management.

The National Reading Plan was launched in 2006 and it is currently in effect for the decade of 2017-2027.  This new edition intends to invest more in the support to programmes especially designed to favour social inclusion through reading, in different formats; training of different segments of the population - children, young people and adults; inclusion of people with specific needs; the articulated development of a scientific, literary and artistic culture; and, also, the access to knowledge and culture while resorting to information and communication technologies.

The National Cinema Plan was created in 2013 and every school year establishes a set of goals to pursue, according to the evaluation carried out by the three entities that run this plan. It intends to be an entirely national plan.