Technology and academic plans of Law schools in Portugal

Abstract

Students enrolled in Portuguese higher education in the Law courses of the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school year had 15 different courses of study: five in public universities (two of them with post-work placements), two in non-state public education and eight in private universities. More than 1400 public education posts were filled with high average of the last student placed. Although these students have good grades of admission, they lack some skills, particularly in terms of technologies and of their good use, as university students and later as law graduates. Students coming to university bring little technological knowledge from secondary education since curricula are very poor in this area. In Portugal there is a curriculum in secondary education but not all students were contemplated and often what is taught in these high school subjects is related to internet, blogs or websites (usually taught in a very light way). Usually nothing about office tools, often seen as a poor relative of technology, when in reality they are very powerful means of working (and not only). Although most of the students were born in a digital age, there are many difficulties in terms of basic computer applications from the perspective of the user. In fact, they live surrounded by technology, they use technology to communicate and have fun, and often use digital office applications, but they do so in a very poor and incorrect way. To meet these needs, some of the universities have included in their curriculum some unit’s curricula that aim to provide students with the knowledge and skills to handle the technologies and make a good use of them. This article is part of a study that portrays the technological knowledge of students when they enter a law course, the technological teaching/learning within a course plan in higher education in a law school and after attending technological units provided within a degree, which is the knowledge that the orders intend that the candidates have, as well as the technological needs of the professionals of the different careers that have in common the degree in law. In this article, a study is made of the course plans of the first cycle school year existing in Portugal in the two academics year 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 and list the curricular units that deal with technological concepts and tools. A comparison is made between these different curricular units and suggestions are made for the transmission of computer knowledge to future law graduates.