And a fifth of the population has zero qualifications...

There are now 1.2 million Portuguese with higher education qualifications – though only 12% of these went on to complete their university education and only 13% have qualifications up to pre-university level.

Elsewhere, 16% of the population has the obligatory nine years of schooling – and 13% only got to the 5th and 6th years. Sadly, the first four years of education are the ones that unite the majority of Portuguese – with 25% having achieved these – while there is still 19% of the population that didn’t even complete primary school. This alarming information emerged from the recent 2011 Census, complied by INE, the national statistics institute.