As the University of the Azores marks its fiftieth anniversary, it is only fitting to return to the moment when higher education in the Region first began to take shape—a process whose decisive contours emerged between 1970 and 1974, the year in which the then Minister of National Education, Veiga Simão, launched Portugal’s sweeping educational reform.

It was a particularly demanding period in the country’s history. Veiga Simão distinguished himself as a forceful advocate for the democratization of education and, in 1973, played a central role in the creation of several institutions of higher learning across Portugal, including the New University of Lisbon, the University of Minho, and the University of Aveiro, as well as the establishment of the University Institute of Évora that same year.

At the time, the Secretary of State for Education was the Azorean Dr. Augusto Atayde. In Ponta Delgada, secondary education was anchored by two reference institutions: Antero de Quental High School and the Commercial and Industrial School of Ponta Delgada.

Yet in 1973, access to higher education for students from the Azores remained, for many, an insurmountable barrier—not because of a lack of academic merit, but because their families lacked the economic and financial means to bear the costs of pursuing studies outside the archipelago.

It was within this context that a group of graduating students from both secondary schools came together to request a meeting with the Minister of Education during one of Veiga Simão’s visits to the Azores. The request, conveyed through the principals of the two schools, sought a joint meeting with Minister Veiga Simão and Secretary of State Augusto Atayde. The students wished to present a document containing a clear and direct appeal.

Their request was straightforward: that an institute for the Azores be created, modeled on the University Institute of Évora. The Minister’s response was that, from that point forward, new Schools of Higher Education would be established, and that he would do everything in his power to ensure that one of these schools would be created in the Azores. This was not precisely what the students had envisioned, but they agreed to wait for the proposal Veiga Simão had announced before taking a position.

Then came the Revolution of April 25, 1974. In its aftermath, the group refrained from pursuing the proposal for Higher Education Schools. Some of the students took advantage of the new circumstances to leave for the United States and Canada, where, with the support of family members, they continued their studies. In time, several would return and even become part of the University of the Azores itself. Of the original group of 150 petitioners, most have since passed away. Those who remain occasionally recall the request that waited for better days. I was among those who did not give up. After returning from the Colonial War, I entered politics and kept alive the proposal first advanced by Veiga Simão, with whom I maintained an excellent relationship after April 25.

Later, as an elected Deputy to the Constituent Assembly, I persisted—through multiple formal petitions addressed to the Provisional Government—in pressing the case for the urgent creation of institutions of higher education in the Azores. In one of my interventions in the Constituent Assembly, I defended both the necessity and the urgency of fulfilling what had already been promised.

As a result of this insistence, I received a reply informing me that the Government would no longer pursue the model of Higher Education Schools and that the project would instead be converted into University Institutes.

The creation of the University Institutes ultimately coincided with the Constituent Assembly’s debate over the Autonomy project. In the meantime, on two occasions, I had submitted formal requests to the acting President of the Republic, asking that the Government in office move forward with the legislation establishing the University Institutes. The response from the Presidency arrived precisely as the approval of the Autonomy Projects for the Azores and Madeira was being debated—a debate in which I was participating. I could not restrain myself upon hearing the news and asked the President of the Assembly for permission to record, during the debate, a note of gratitude, believing it my duty to incorporate that acknowledgment into my remarks on Azorean Autonomy.

An excerpt from that moment remains worth recalling:

“Mr. President: Having defended with conviction in this Chamber the creation of University Institutes, I cannot fail now to welcome the measure that brings into operation the University Institute of the Azores.

It will play an important role in the life and future of the Azores and the Azorean people. To professors and students is entrusted the task of shaping and enriching the history of the Region and its people. To youth, in turn, is reserved a decisive role in contemporary society, for it will be the engine of our Region’s progress. It is therefore essential to remind young people of the responsibility they will bear in the future as builders of knowledge and culture for the common good. It is never excessive to recall the importance assigned to them so that unity may grow around an ideal grounded in humanism, in respect for others, and in democracy as the only path through which all will enjoy rights and obligations alike. Thus may the Schools and University Institutes created—and yet to be created—serve, through knowledge, as a vital instrument of the permanent renewal of society.”

Américo Natalino Viveiro, director

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL)