Used textbooks for social change

Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Organization: Portuguese Government

 The example we choose is an initiative of giving free books to
public students from the first to twelve grades carried by the
Portuguese government.
The government of Portugal is responsible for conducting the
general policy of the country and directs the public administration, it
exercises political, legislative, and administrative functions.
We decided to select this initiative from the Portuguese
government as it is our home country and believe it is a good cause
with the objective of promoting free education and giving access to all
students to a tool that will be very important in the future.
Portugal has around 1 111 488 students in these years in the
public sector and this initiative would include all of them. It first
started in the 2019, and it was first compromised because it caused
overbudgeting and most of students were getting new books,
otherwise to what was predicted, that most students would receive
reused manuals.
Even thought, the initiative still went on and had another barrier
because of COVID-19, covid started to become a big threat around the
first moths of 2020 and students were sent home and only went to
school to do written exams. This caused some schools to not ask for
the books or create an efficient way of the books being delivered
without the threat of spreading the virus, this led to many students
keeping the books at home and to never give them back.
With the passing of the pandemic and students’ lives becoming
more normal, the initiative was resumed with new rules and better
practices in 2022.
The free assignment of textbooks is carried out by a platform
(MEGA), through a voucher system. Each voucher includes a unique
code, and the corresponding manual is indicated, the vouchers then
will be used to pick the books up at bookstores.
The school textbooks distributed must be returned at the end of
the school year or at the end of the study cycle, in the case of subjects
subject to examination. They should return to the school by the
guardian, in good condition, to be reused in the following school year.
If the books are in a poor condition, the guardian is obligated to pay
for them, and if he does not do so, he loses the right to them in the
following school year. It is up to the schools to assess the state of
repair and sort out the returned free textbooks.
Although there is an exception, the students from the first cycle
(from the first grade to the fourth) don´t have to return the textbooks
as these students are in the beginning of their learning age, the books
may be helpful for the first years, so in these cycle years it will always
be distributed new schoolbooks.
Our example belongs to the school of thought EMES as it is a
government of a country. In our example of Social and Sustainable
entrepreneurship, the social part is meant to have a positive impact on
their community, therefore the Portuguese students were giving
benefits from the government. Regarding sustainable, with the books
being reused for other years it helped the environment by not
producing so many paper each year.
In conclusion, we believe that this initiative is very important to
our country, as education is the most important tool to the citizen
education and transformation of society. It is responsible for the
multiplication of knowledge and the development of useful skills for
the individual to act in this community. We ourselves were integrated
in this initiative some years ago and hope it continues for many years
and for the future generations.
References:
https://www.montepio.org/ei/ultimas/pais-e-professores-ultimas/
manuais-escolares-gratuitos-saiba-se-tem-direito/

https://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Alunos+matriculados+no+ensino+p
%C3%BAblico+total+e+por+n%C3%ADvel+de+ensino-1003

https://www.jornaldenegocios.pt/economia/educacao/detalhe/manuais-
gratuitos-ate-ao-12-ano-custam-mais-100-milhoes-do-que-o-estimado-
pelo-governo