According to António Cruz Serra, Dean of the University of Lisbon, the lack of engineers in Portugal and Europe is due to the lack of courses in Computer Engineering, which is not possible to circumvent due to strict rules for hiring teachers and budget restrictions.
In an interview with “Económico”, António Cruz Serra, Dean of the University of Lisbon spoke of some essential points of higher education in Portugal and of the challenges that education faces, namely, in responding to the needs of the labor market.
As explained by the Dean, the Director of Microsoft Portugal revealed some concerns, namely, with the shortage of around 5,000 computer engineers in Portugal, a number that in Europe amounts to 500 thousand.
To combat this need, the only solution would obviously be to increase training in this area, however, Universities do not have the capacity to receive more students, since there is a huge barrier that prevents the hiring of more teachers: budget restrictions and the strict hiring rules themselves.
To set up a new course, in which we receive 100 or 200 students, will demand intensive work, because it is not the same giving theoretical classes to 200 students. We must have installed capacity. We need to make hires that violate the rules that prevent hiring itself.
Still in the same interview, António Cruz Serra, states that ways should be found to put more people to study in universities, even if not in “expensive courses”, according to him, there is “certainly the capacity to have more people in higher education and to model what the training offer is from the point of view of training costs ”.