Portuguese president highlights importance of vocational training to help economy grow

Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva on Friday highlighted the importance of vocational training to help the country's economy grow and combat unemployment.

"This branch of education and professional training is decisive to reinforce the economic growth of our country in a sustainable way, to help combat the scourge of unemployment. We are on the right track in this sense," Cavaco Silva told journalists following an event dedicated to vocational training in Setubal, around 50 km south of Lisbon, according to local media.

He pointed out that vocational training schools offered specific technical qualifications and helped contribute to the country's lower unemployment rate, adding that it was necessary to combat stigma related to this choice of education.

"In these schools teaching is intellectually very demanding, more modern methods are used and more advanced technical instruments are used than those that exist in all of Europe," he added.

Cavaco Silva also said that the government's objective was for 50 percent of young people in secondary schools to go into vocational training.

Portugal's youth unemployment rate currently stands at around 31 percent, the fifth highest rate in Europe. Endit