The National Council of Education, in partnership with Lusófona University of Lisbon, is organising the Seminar “Teacher Performance Evaluation: Policies, Practices and Effects”.

Teacher performance evaluation is a complex and often controversial topic, yet one that plays a decisive role in improving the quality of education. In general terms, it seeks to understand how evaluation can contribute to improving teacher quality, teaching practices and, consequently, students’ learning and academic outcomes.

This perspective requires reflection on its principles and assumptions, its procedures and methods, the purposes it serves and its effects (both intended and unintended). Within this framework, discussions arise, for example, around the possibility of reconciling summative purposes focused on career management with formative purposes focused on teachers’ professional development within the same evaluation system.

Thus, the debate surrounding teacher performance evaluation includes consideration of teacher professionalism, the teacher profile and its framework within the teaching career statute, as well as the way evaluation is conceptualised and operationalised.

It is with the aim of discussing this topic that the National Council of Education is organising this Seminar, where, from both national and international perspectives, the policies, practices and effects of teacher performance evaluation will be debated, considering their relevance in the current context and their ethical, methodological and pedagogical implications.