As the General Secretary of the National Council of Education (CNE – Conselho Nacional de Educação), it is my direct responsibility to overlook its functioning as well as the execution of its Plan of Activities, which is annually defined and publicised on this Portal. This is the reason why I am making a brief presentation of the Council main characteristics on these domains, which can then be further read in their respective sections.

As an independent consulting body in matters related to education policy, the CNE has a wide representation structure resulting from its own composition which ensures the integration of a diversity of perspectives and sensitivities from different stakeholders including political, social, economic and cultural instances, as well as parents, teachers and students. As reinforcement to a technical component that enables it to prove its positions from the scientific and pedagogic points of view, the Council not only relies on different thematic initiatives, studies or professional auditing, but it also includes co-opted members that excel in their scientific and pedagogic merit. Moreover, before the approval of its official positions reflections and deep debates are also carried out within Specialised Committees and within the Council’s Plenary itself.

As a support to all the CNE’s activities, it has a technical and administrative department that daily responds to all requests from the sixty eight Council members, ensures the organisation of seminars and conferences, assures technical monitoring in the preparation of reports and recommendations, offers support to the development of research studies and projects, prepares materials for publication, including the Council Activities Report, which must be published by statutory obligation, organises all the interaction between the Council and society, through the media or through its own editorial initiatives and makes all these documents available for public consultation.