Portugal

The Ministry of Education created the GAERI, or Gabinete de Assuntos Europeus e Relaço~es Internacionais (Office for European and International Relations) through the Decree-Law 59/96 to take care of assuntos comunitários (community issues), assuntos bilaterais e multilaterais (bilateral and multilateral issues), and cooperação para o desenvolvimento (developmental cooperation). The objective of GAERI is to fulfill the needs of the European Common Market. Several projects are being developed by the Instituto de Inovação Educacional (Institute of Educational Innovations) in this direction. There are over 110 projects available, elaborated by a team of professors from several countries. This is part of the distance learning process. Some of the main projects developed by Portugal in conjunction with other countries are: "The image of the other," "Women all over the world," "Islands projects," "Art gallery," "Life in my part of the world," "Global water sampling project," and "Radiodata." The last two projects highlight a main concern of the Institute of Educational Innovations with environmental issues involving the decline of life quality. The institute tries to identify the evolution of national measures for environmental protection and to disseminate these notions through nonformal education in the media and schools in order to bring awareness to the youngsters who can make a difference in the future of the world.

The European Schools Project is a European initiative to promote telecommunications in basic and secondary schools throughout the world. It was started in 1988 at the University of Amsterdam and has the participation of more than 300 schools in 26 countries. The use of the Internet to promote better learning is one of its main purposes.

Other projects involve the teaching of the Portuguese language and the development of knowledge of Portuguese culture through books and television programs to Portuguese speaking countries, the PALOP, or Países de Língua Oficial Portuguesa (countries of official Portuguese language). In the African Portuguese speaking countries, Portuguese is only one of many languages and generally the official one for schooling and business communication.