Promoting success for non-traditional students in Portugal – a preliminary diagnosis

Comunicação oral apresentada ao The challenge of Access, Retention and Drop-out in Higher Education in Europe: the experiences of non-traditional students, Sevilha, Espanha, 7-8 Abril.The access to Higher Education for mature students older than 23 in Portugal was made easier on the sequence of the implementation of the Bologna processes, that allowed a national Law to be changed in order to take also into account the eventual professional experience of the candidates. In this paper we will present a research project6 involving the universities of Algarve and Aveiro, which aims to study deeply the non-traditional student’s situation in order to create conditions for improving their academic success and reduce dropout. In this context we report the first (still superficial) results on the profile of these students, its time evolution and retention/dropout rates, with some considerations regarding those results.F