Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Director of Camões Lyceum,
President of the Centenary Organization Committee,
Professor João Lobo Antunes,
Student’s Representative,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I preside at the commemorative ceremony of the centenary of the Building of Camões Lyceum, one of our most prestigious and revered schools for many generations of students and teachers.

We witnessed here today the launching of a book recalling the life of this School, with depositions from many who attended its classes. Common to all, the pride and affection with which they say: “I was a student at Camões Lyceum”!

I recall that, until approximately half a century ago, to enter secondary school was to acquire a charter of distinction, to belong to a group of those sufficiently privileged to have achieved the right to further their learning in order to attend University.

Secondary school was the first great social selection: those that remained with the 4th Grade, those who were directed to the trade and industrial schools, as in my case, and those who had the material conditions for higher flying.

At that time, the number of official secondary schools in the Country was no more than a handful, which required that many youngsters who lived away from the district capitals had to move there and be lodged in boarding houses or stay with members of the family.

This circumstance required that the families consider with great care the continuation of studies, since they were many times forced to choose amongst their offspring those with greater capacity to achieve success. “Having a child studying” was considered a luxury that the parents of more modest origins were very proud of.

Apart from this, there was a social concept that propitiated premature work, which easily legitimized that the less endowed, or those that in spite of showing capabilities for study, demanded impossible financial efforts from the family, became included in the labour market immediately after completing the obligatory basic schooling.

This, naturally, not to mention the ancestral view which still endured with respect to the role of women in society, which bestowed on girls a very clear disadvantage in the access to secondary learning.

Thus many talents were wasted and many personal rebellions were lived, solely due to unrequited ambitions.

Thousands of stories are related in our literature in which the first great hindrance an ambitious youngster had to conquer was precisely that of gaining the right to secondary learning!

For this reason, perhaps, because of this selection and of this demand, the lack of success in learning was very badly viewed. It was considered an absolute duty for students to study hard, to make enormous efforts, to have good marks and to pass their examinations. And it was considered as normal that those who felt difficulties and missed out in passing should end up by abandoning their studies.

Work, preciseness and discipline were the necessary conditions for success, and teachers held an undeniable authority, which should be capable of producing the best results and guarantee that the parents’ investment would be fruitful.

There was a panel of honour, where the best saw their name with great pride. Apart from a good example it was equally a strong commitment of expectations, since it was as honourable to be recorded on the panel as it was demeaning to be crossed out.

We can state with pride that much has evolved since those days and that schooling for all has become a central issue in National, European and International policies.

Going to school is, today a simple right of every child, and obligatory learning already covers 12 years of schooling.

These days it is the duty of every parent to send their children to school, to provide them with conditions to study or to obtain from the State the required support, the necessary condition to effectively achieve equal opportunities.

These days, to complete secondary learning and advance in studies as much as possible are, to start with, an issue of social justice, as well as a highly returnable investment, not only for the students themselves but for society as a whole.

Selective schooling gave ground to inclusive schooling.

An inclusive school requires room for the best, which must be able to expand their capabilities, but it must also know how to welcome, support and develop all those that appear with lesser potential, be it for individual reasons or due to unfavourable social or family conditions.

It is in the field of knowledge and qualification that Portugal still stands at a significant disadvantage relative to other European countries.

If, on the one hand, we have achieved notable progress during the last decades in generalizing obligatory learning, in the reduction of school abandonment and in the level of University frequency, we still have far to go, on the other hand, in the achievement of quality and competitiveness of our educational and training systems, as compared with European standards.

It is at school that the bases of all knowledge and skills are acquired. More, it is at school that many of the rules, attitudes and fundamental values which will be used as a reference throughout life are acquired, especially when the role of the families becomes more than ever conditioned by the vertigo of modern life and by the growing desegregation of family ties or of inter-generational links.

The characteristics and the operation of the labour market have, in their turn, suffered an accelerated change.

Young people have to leave school equipped not just with a number of specific abilities and skills but also with general competences which will provide them with capacity for adjustment, creativity and taste for lifelong learning.

There is no lifelong employment, and mobility, including between different countries, is a demanding reality. This also implies new means of teaching and learning, which the school must know how to answer.

Teachers, who in the old days were the schools agents for precision and selection, are today the crucial agents for the success of this development demanded by modern and global society.

They are responsible for the links between the outside world and the preparation of the children and youngsters who sit in their classes to achieve learning and discovery.

Today, just as one hundred years ago, school has an outstanding role in the life of young people, but its functions have become so complex and extensive that it requires the coordination of national and European policies, as well as the setting of quality standards which guide and stimulate a continuing improvement.

But today, just as one hundred years ago, a good school and good teachers remain a reference throughout the life of each student, such as a seed that fructifies and will generate new fruits, as has been proven by the students who sat on the benches of Camões Lyceum and who are present here to pay this tribute.

Camões Lyceum, with its large and austere building designed by Architect Ventura Terra, immediately became a symbol of educational quality and demand, in a modern concept of a school providing full physical and intellectual training.

One hundred years past the inaugural act of these facilities, it can be stated that they are the symbol of what can and must be a school. An area for the complete development of young people’s capabilities, a field of conviviality and competitiveness, but equally a centre of culture and training which will leave in the young a prominent characteristic of an opening towards the world and towards diversity, the taste for knowledge and the will to go further.

This spirit is proven by the large number of famous students who attended the school, now in every walk of life, from literature to politics, to medicine or to music, amongst many others.

I congratulate Camões Lyceum and all those who study and work here, now and forever planning new paths to the future.

I salute the officers, the teachers and staff who have already retired from active life but who are still a living presence in the school and in the affections of former students.

I salute the memory of those who, not amongst us any more, knew how to provide this institution, throughout this century, with such enormous charisma.

I wish that the coming 100 years may confirm and honour all that has been, and continues being achieved here day-to-day, devotedly and with enormous labour, for the benefit of future generations.

Thank you very much.