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The Basic Education course will have another 20% of vacancies available. For medicine there are also more vacancies, but especially for international students.
Even before registration with national examinations, the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation released the number of vacancies for access to higher education in 2025.
Polytechnic universities and institutes offer more vacancies in access competitions, making available 101,798 places in integrated degrees and mastersaccording to lists released today that reveal a 20% increase in basic education.
Between private and public institutions, students will have this year 1,647 more places, According to the data provided by the Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES).
Three out of every four vacancies are opened in public institutions, which this year available 76,818 seats (691 more than last year), while private institutions decided to open 24,980 seats (956 more than 2024).
This year, vacancies are released two months earlier, allowing students to know the offer of each institution before applying for national secondary exams.
Overall, there is a slight increase in vacancies again, highlighting the courses that give access to the profession of teacher: the vacancies in the study cycles of Basic Education increased 20%now there are 1,197 vacancies (204 more than last year).
The Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) changed the diploma that defines the guidelines and limits in setting vacancies for access and admission to higher education in 2025, giving an open letter to institutions to increase the vacancies of basic education study cycles without any limit beyond the maximum admissions limit.
With the fixation of vacancies today, the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can also now increase the vacancies of teacher training masters.
Education Minister Fernando Alexandre had already revealed that there would be an increase in places for the courses that allow students to become teachers, but without ever advancing the concrete number, choosing to say that there would also be more places to train future doctors .
The numbers released today show that in the next school year there will be more 130 vacancies in medicine than last year through competitions and special access regimes, But most (86) will be for international students That enters through the special contest, a possibility introduced this year by the government “in response to the requests of the institutions”, underlines the tutelage.
“To make available these additional places, the institutions requested increases in the maximum admissions limit, rising the total number of vacancies that can be offered in medical courses,” explains Meci, ensuring that this increase does not damage the number of vacancies in medicine through the general access regime, which remains in 1,594.
In the universe of the approximately 75 thousand vacancies of public institutions, 55,956 are fixed through the general access regime and the remaining 20,862 vacancies are fixed in the set of competitions and special access regimes.
Excellence courses with more vacancies
– Students will have this year’s 432 vacancies in the “Excellence Courses”, ie those courses with higher access averages.
Excellence courses, so designated for having more candidates at first option with a grade equal to or greater than 17 values, will have this year 4,468 vacancies, 432 more than last yearaccording to data released today by the Directorate-General of Higher Education (DGES).
Most of these courses are in the universities of Porto and Lisbon, but there are also others all over the country, from the University of Minho, Aveiro or Coimbra.
For several years, these courses, which have left many students with very high averages, cannot reduce the number of places and even allowed them to increase. This year, The growth is 10.7%.
Another of the areas where the legislation imposes, at least, the maintenance of vacancies in national competitions are the courses aimed at digital skills: this year students will have 9,414 vacancies (59 more than 2024), according to DGES data.
The order signed by the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, defined that the medical and teacher training courses, which could increase the offer up to 10%, now have as its maximum admissions the values accredited by the Evaluation and Accreditation Agency of Higher Education (A3ES).
