What’s become clear on this trip visiting schools in Northern Portugal is the progress being made to realize the education vision of José Alberto Lencastre.

​Dr. Lencastre is Associate Professor of Educational Technology at the Institute of Education of the University of Minho, Portugal. His Education 5.0 vision is that when children have an educational experience that engages them, treats them as human beings, the system operates as a community, students advance, and students, teachers, and parents are happier.

The AlfaCoop School in Braga, Portugal is the embodiment of that. Students run up to and hug their teachers. Academic class time consists primarily of students learning while solving problems, helping each other and with little need for teacher intervention. Students have ample time to engage in sports, music, play, and art. Technology is built in and hardly noticed, it’s like water, there when it’s needed. Marco Bento and Celestino Magalhães started implementing Education 5.0 with the teachng team at AlfaCoop in 2018, when the pre-12 school had a total enrollment of 200 students. This 2024-25 school year, the enrollment is over 1230 with a waitlist to get it.

Marco, Celestino, and José were our hosts for both the 2023 and the 2024 Portugal Education Summit.

AlfaCoop is a private school owned by the teachers. Parents in the Braga area opt to send their children to Alfa Coop for about $3,000 per year instead of the free public schools. Virtually all graduates go on to postsecondary education. Teachers, parents, kids, and administrators seem like a well functioning family, each has the others' backs.

I would imagine the reaction of many people reading the above would be that it’s all fine and good for a private school to implement student-centric policies, but that would never work at a public institution.

Marco, through his Super Tabi organization, along with Celestino and others, have implemented Education 5.0 at over 60 schools in northern Portugal.We visited Central School in Maia, Portugal (Centro Escolarda Maia).

On the surface this elementary school is not dissimilar from an elementary school anywhere else. There are different socio economic strata. There are special students with special needs.There are many shortages in supplies, equipment, and personnel. Classes tend to be 18-30 students.

While the school’s director bought into the Education 5.0/Super Tabi model, Marco insisted that implementation not be top down; individual teachers are given the choice to opt in or not to opt in to the Super Tabi problem-based learning student centric model of instruction. If they accepted, they received professional development, coaching, and technological, pedagogical, and parental support. In fact, just under half the teachers have agreed to participate, but in those classroom, there is magic. No teacher is coerced to adapt Super Tabi, although they can’t help but notice that the students in the Super Tabi classrooms are happier, the teachers are more fully supported, the students are learning more, and that many parents are disappointed when their students are assigned to didactic classrooms.

At this point, just under half the teachers teach the Super Tabi way.

All curriculum meets national standards, but teaching is based on a semester long story. Students learn (all subjects) in order to solve issues that characters in the story face and to advance the story. Students are so engaged, and we saw K through 4 students, that a crowd of 12 adults can walk into the classroom and the students don’t break from their problem-solving.

Student tables are arranged in groups of 4, with 3 students and room for a helper. As 1 student solves an issue, that student becomes a helper, moving around the classroom assisting other students.

How does Education 5.0 scale in Portugal? In addition to Marco’s Super Tabi adding about 7 schools a year, there are two other mechanisms.

Celestino is now Adjunct Professor at Piaget Institute where he educates in-service and pre-service teachers.

Instituto Piaget not only trains teachers, they conduct practical research on technologies and pedagogical methods, and then incorporate the results into their professional training.

Second, there is a cohort of new educator-trainers working individually and with José, Marco, and Celestino who are just starting to scale Education 5.0 in other communities in North Portugal and beyond.

We still have two days to go on our 2024 Portugal Education Summit. More after these next two days.

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