Portugal exam digital errors prompt reclassification, special session
The digitisation of roughly 300,000 secondary‑school exams in Portugal suffered multiple glitches, including missing grades, swapped pages and parametrisation errors in subjects such as Geography, Physics & Chemistry, History and Portuguese NL. The National Exams Jury (JNE) re‑classified more than 5,000 papers to correct the affected scores.
Education Minister Fernando Alexandre told parliament that all grades would be published by the end of the week and that the correction platform is now fully operational, allowing errors to be fixed in minutes. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro announced that “the worst is over” and that safeguards for rigor and equity are in place.
Opposition parties (PCP, BE and PS) demanded the abolition of the €25 fee for exam re‑appraisal and called for accountability. In response, the government introduced a special “extraordinary” exam period from 3‑8 September for eligible students, extended the application deadline for the national university admission contest, and pledged free access to re‑appraisal procedures.