EDUCATION

The early school dropout rate (education and training) in the Azores rose from 19.8% in 2024 to 21.1% in 2025, reversing the downward trend recorded nationally, according to data from Portugal’s National Statistics Institute (INE). Between 2020 and 2025, the archipelago’s dropout rate reached as high as 27% in 2022 and remained consistently far above the national average, whose peak during the same period was 9.1% in 2020 and now stands at 6.1%.

Meanwhile, basic education attainment in the Azores, although increasing by more than six percentage points over this same period, reached only 67.4% in 2025—still significantly below the national figure, which now approaches 83%. Secondary school attainment, though gradually improving, remains below 50% in the Azores, compared to 66.6% nationwide.

As for higher education among residents aged 25 to 64, the Azores currently register an attainment rate of just 18%, far below the national average of nearly 33%.

Taken together, these figures paint a troubling picture of education and workforce training in the Azores, with the high dropout rate standing out as particularly damaging to the region’s development potential within the national context. Although overall educational attainment has improved somewhat over the past five years, the islands have failed to keep pace with national growth rates, falling progressively further behind the Portuguese average.

The implications are politically significant. The data reflect poorly on successive regional governments led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), supported by right-wing parties including the CDS, Chega, and the Liberal Initiative (IL). Despite 50 years of Autonomy—an historic achievement—regional administrations, following similar shortcomings demonstrated by earlier Socialist Party (PS) governments, have either been unable or unwilling to exercise that autonomy effectively and constructively. The priority, critics argue, should have been to overcome the 48 years of isolation and underdevelopment imposed by the Salazar dictatorship.

The inescapable conclusion from the latest INE data is that education—formally entrusted to the Autonomous Region five decades ago—has yet to be fully embraced in its transformative and developmental dimension by successive regional governments.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

In a forceful defense of the freedom and democracy won on April 25, 1974, Portuguese voters came together to reject what many viewed as new standard-bearers of old Salazarism. António José Seguro may well have his merits, but he can only take pride in the sweeping results in large part because of a repudiation vote against the second candidate—clearly expressed by a significant portion of the electorate.

No alternative reading of the results—though many have been advanced, especially by promoters of the defeated candidate—can erase this simple conclusion, however inconvenient it may be for certain elites, including the candidate himself (despite his rhetoric attacking them).

One note of criticism regarding Seguro’s victory speech: not a single word about peace. And when many expected that the first meeting of the Council of State he announced would focus squarely on the natural disasters that have recently affected the country, it emerged that while civil protection will be discussed, the meeting will primarily serve to introduce the issue of increased European investment in “defense.”

In Diário dos Açores

Mário Abrantes is a regular columnist for various Azorean newspapers and has been reflecting and writing about Azorean issues for many years. We are pleased to have his columns in English for our readers of Azorean ancestry and those interested in the Azores.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant perspectives 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)