Burocracia e Flexibilidade Curricular

Perceções dos Diretores das Escolas de Portugal Continental

Abstract

The processes of autonomy and curricular flexibility in Portuguese schools indicate the need to create mechanisms for more systematic and continuous organizational, administrative, and pedagogical practices. This need arises from the possibility for each school to make decisions regarding the curriculum, which must be consistent with current legislation.

Decree-law 55/2018 of July 6 (DL55) establishes the curriculum for Basic and Secondary Education in a logic of autonomy and curriculum flexibility. Each school can decide how to contextualize the curriculum locally and at the same time ensure that it makes the best use of available resources (Normative Dispatch n.º 10-B/2018).

In these decision-making processes, one should bear in mind the improvement of bureaucratic processes and communication channels, the promotion of collaborative work, the creation of sharing networks, the establishment of partnerships and the close support of specialists.

The study presented here is part of a broader project on bureaucracy, that is being developed by a Center of Research. In this article, we intend to understand the bureaucratic procedures implemented in schools associated with the LD55 and contribute to reducing its dysfunctionalities.

In methodological terms, we resorted to a questionnaire survey (IQ) applied to directors of clusters and non-grouped schools (AE/EnA) on a national scale. The questionnaire was prepared considering the overall objectives of the project on bureaucracy, having been previously evaluated by specialists and approved by the ethics committee of the Center of Research and by the General Directorate of Education (DGE), of the Ministry of Education. The application of this IQ resulted in a set of data relating to the perceptions of directors of AE/EnA in Portugal on bureaucratic procedures in their schools.

In this article, we present the principals' perceptions about the impacts that the LD55 has on the bureaucracy of teaching work and about the impact of the implementation of the said decree on the academic success of students and on the work of teachers.

Among the main results of this work, there is a tendency to fill in unnecessary documents and excessive meetings within the scope of curriculum flexibility; the need to find ways to counteract the bureaucratic dysfunctions identified and the positive perceptions of directors about the impact of implementing the aforementioned decree on the academic success of students and the work of teachers in terms of improving collaborative work between teachers