Digital grading of Portugal's national exams stumbles as teachers report chaos, deceased teacher summoned

Minister defends process

Education Minister Fernando Alexandre acknowledged technical difficulties in the new digital grading system but assured that the process remains within the required schedule. Speaking at a ceremony in Porto on 29 June, he said all teachers will have the statutory ten working days to correct the exams and that results will be published on 14 July, after the grading deadline of 10 July. "We regret that unforeseen errors are appearing, but that is part of the process; what matters is that no student is harmed," he stated.

No student will be harmed.

The minister blamed some of the delays on schools that stapled exam papers contrary to instructions, damaging the QR codes needed for digital identification. He described the digitisation of the paper-based exams as proceeding without major disruptions, characterising the new system as a modernisation that reduces grader bias because each exam is split among multiple teachers.

Teachers' grievances multiply

The teachers' unions and civic movements painted a sharply different picture. The movement MetaPROF documented 59 cases by early afternoon on 29 June, ranging from teachers assigned to subjects they do not teach to retired or even deceased educators receiving call-ups. In Figueira da Foz, a teacher who died in December was summoned to grade Physics and Chemistry A papers. In Oliveira de Azeméis, a Portuguese teacher received Economics papers, and in Lisbon a Geology teacher was called to correct French exams.

Teachers feel wounded because blame has been pushed onto the schools for the confusion generated in this process.

The National Education Federation (FNE) demanded urgent clarification from the Institute of Education, Quality and Evaluation (EduQA) and warned that any failure in a process directly affecting thousands of students' academic futures carries added gravity. The Stop union described the situation as an unprecedented organisational crisis.

Blame game erupts

The National Association of School Directors (Andaep) rejected any responsibility for the failures, stating that schools had followed all required procedures within the established deadlines. It criticised the ministry for an apparent attempt to shift blame onto schools, calling for more support instead of declarations that unsettle school communities. The directors insisted the problems were of a technological and organisational nature tied to the entity operating the digital model.

Earlier, the National Exam Board (JNE) and EduQA had pointed to the quality of information provided by schools as a factor in the flawed call-up lists, but the directors' association deemed it unacceptable for the ministry to transfer responsibilities that "manifestly do not belong to them."

Systemic flaws exposed

The difficulties follow a pilot project last year with the Philosophy exam, which had already revealed similar errors. With about 160,000 students and thousands of evaluators involved in this year's first phase of exams (held from 16 to 26 June), the scaling of digital grading has magnified the friction. Teachers also reported cases of pages missing from exams, incomplete answers appearing in the system, and different handwriting being assigned to the same student.

In response, the civic movement Missão Escola Pública circulated a draft waiver of responsibility for teachers grading the national exams, citing insufficient safeguards in the digital correction process.

Outlook

The JNE says it is in a recovery phase and began distributing exam answers to graders gradually on 29 June. The minister promised an audit once the grading phase ends to prevent a repeat next year. With results due on 14 July, the immediate question is whether the remaining days will be enough to clear the backlog without compromising the rigour expected by students and families.