Portugal’s Education Minister addresses digital exam platform failures

The Portuguese Ministry of Education’s digital platform for correcting the national secondary exams experienced serious technical problems, affecting the processing of roughly 300,000 papers. Errors in digitisation and classification caused delays, with the first‑phase results pushed from July 14 to July 17 and the second‑phase schedule shifted to start on July 20. Minister Fernando Alexandre announced a maintenance window on the night of July 7‑8 and said the team was “resolving everything”. He also pledged that, from July 17, students will be able to view their exam papers and grades online via a link, a change from the previous request‑based system. The issues prompted a petition signed by more than 6,400 parents calling for the exams to be annulled, and opposition parties, including the PCP and PS, demanded a parliamentary hearing of the minister. The Order of Engineers expressed “deep concern” over security flaws in the platform and offered assistance. The ministry maintains that the problems have been fixed and that the digital correction will continue for future exams.