On December 19, 2023, the 1st Meeting "The National Reading Plan in Higher Education" took place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, jointly organized by The National Reading Plan (PNL) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. In order to expand and strengthen initiatives involving higher education institutions, the PNL2027 includes SECTES in its Interministerial Commission, in its second stage of development.
Regina Duarte is the current Commissioner of the National Reading Plan (PNL); a team coordinated by Cristina Robalo Cordeiro (Univ. of Coimbra) presented a survey on reading habits in Higher Education. The Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) was represented by Professor Cândido Oliveira Martins. This was a day of reflection on the importance of promoting reading activities in Higher Education, given the diagnosis of a lack of healthy reading habits.
This meeting is being held within the strategic framework of the National Reading Plan (PNL2027) and the government's priorities for the current legislature, as part of the development of an integrated policy to promote reading among higher education students, through the creation of Reading Clubs in Higher Education.
The purpose of the meeting was to present the "Reading Clubs in Higher Education" network and the conclusions of the first Survey on the Reading Habits of Students in the 1st Cycle of Higher Education (IHLES), which aimed to characterize students' reading habits, perceptions and motivations.
The conviction was reaffirmed that only an integrated strategy that addresses the real needs of the population and the gaps that still exist, in a concerted and supportive action by all the elements of the education system, in its various levels and requirements, is the right way to achieve the objectives that the PNL2027 sets out to achieve.
The aim is to give a new impetus to reading in Higher Education, based on an attitude of curiosity and adventure of the spirit, of creativity and openness to knowledge and the world, and to promote a taste and pleasure for books on the part of teachers and students in Higher Education institutions.