Graduates: are numbers deceiving or did Centeno fool the Portuguese?

Governor of the Bank of Portugal said that there are over 70 thousand graduates per year in the country. But how old are these graduates?

The governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno, said this Tuesday that there is “misleading numbers” regarding the ability to Portugal retains qualified young people and said that the country can be a net recipient of graduates.

Mário Centeno made the initial intervention at the Banco de Portugal conference dedicated to education and qualifications, in Lisbon, considering that sometimes “the country lives focused on a reality that is described with misleading numbers” and that it is up to an entity with the responsibility of the Bank of Portugal “alert to this”, as it is not possible to make “good economic policies without good data and good economic analysis”.

According to the BdP governor, in the last eight years the active population in Portugal with higher education increased by an average of 70 thousand individuals per year.

Furthermore, of Portuguese universities (public and private) leave a little more than 50 mil.

Therefore, he concluded, “Portugal has managed to be a net recipient of graduates” with higher education.

Centeno also said that Eurostat data “show that the percentage of young Portuguese people who emigrate is lower – less than half – than what is observed in countries like Germany, Denmark or the Netherlands”.

It will be?

The bank’s governor then said that on average there are over 70,000 Portuguese graduates a year living in Portugal.

But José Manuel Fernandes went to take a look at the numbers from the National Statistics Institute. And he noticed a “detail”: half of these 70 thousand graduates are over 65 years old.

“Therefore, are not exactly graduated from universities“, warned the political commentator on the radio.

So who are they? “Possibly migrants, or retired from northern Europe who are here. It’s the only possible explanation.”

José Manuel Fernandes reinforces: of the 50 thousand new graduates, 15 thousand leave Portugal. “That is, a third. The numbers won’t be so deceiving“.

Paulo Ferreira added a fundamental problem: “When Mário Centeno speaks, we never know whether the governor of the central bank, the former Minister of Finance or the future candidate for President of the Republic are speaking”.