Porto, Portugal, May 26, 2025 (Lusa) - The Academic Federation of Porto (FAP) wants the next government in Portugal to move forward with the pilot implementation of a four-day week in higher education in Porto and argues that the shorter week is "inevitable".
In an interview with the Lusa news agency to take stock of the first year of the “Think Tank” Pensar a Academia (Thinking about Academia), a FAP initiative in 2024 to mark its 35th anniversary, FAP president Francisco Fernandes highlighted the creation of the “Caderno de Medidas da Academia para o País” (Notebook of Measures for Academia for the Country) as the “most notable” example of the student initiative, which was sent to “all parties in the 2025 Legislative Elections”.
Francisco Fernandes argues that the four-day week in higher education is "something positive" and "inevitable for several reasons". Firstly, because it helps to reconcile "personal and professional life" and, secondly, because it leads to "greater efficiency and optimisation of classroom time".
The FAP president points out that Portugal has an average classroom time "much higher than the European Union average", "often with a lecture-based model", noting that the average is 21 hours, while, for example, the United Kingdom has 14 hours.
The third argument for a four-day week is related to the fact that Portugal has a "major crisis in student accommodation" from a social point of view, which leads students to travel "two hours to Porto and two hours back home" every day.
"By having one less day of classes in Porto, we have four fewer hours of travel for these students who, for economic reasons, cannot live in Porto, and four hours is an afternoon of study," argues the president of the FAP.
When asked by Lusa how the four-day week would be implemented, the president of the FAP argued that it should be done in two ways.
One way is through the Government, which should create incentives - financial or operational - for institutions to want to have a four-day week.
The other way is to challenge the organic units in Porto to set an example.
Francisco Fernandes says that in the next government and in the next parliament, the FAP will exert "political pressure to see the various political parties implement a set of proposals approved at its General Assembly", namely the four-day week that emerged from an "essential" contribution by the eight students who stood out in the “Think Tank” Pensar a Academia (Think Tank: Thinking about Academia).
The FAP “Think Tank”, created in July 2024 to mark the 35th anniversary of the FAP in 2024, is composed of eight young experts and its primary objective is research in the areas of Education, Higher Education and Youth Policies, contributing to the formulation of public policy proposals in Portugal.
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