Questioned by Lusa, the Portuguese organization said that "in most countries there were significant impacts, namely classes interrupted for months, without the use of distance learning, academic years extended for a few months and students who gave up studying".
In 2020, Camões - Institute for Cooperation and Language, awarded 216 internal scholarships, mostly undergraduate degrees, but also from secondary and master's degrees.
Regarding external scholarships (undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in Portugal), 194 students from African Portuguese Speaking Countries (PALOP) and Timor-Leste were awarded in the same period: 134 undergraduate degrees, 36 master's degrees and 24 doctorates.
According to the Camões Institute, "although some scholars have justified less positive school results with the situation of the covid-19, it cannot be said in general that the pandemic will have had a significant impact on academic classifications".
However, Camões recognizes that the "constraints" resulting from the pandemic "brought new logistical and administrative difficulties to the new grant holders, namely difficulties in obtaining local documents for submission to higher education competitions, difficulties in obtaining visas due to restrictions on serving the public by embassies and consulates, difficulties in making flights, difficulties in enrolling (by appointment only) ", among others.
For the current academic year 2020/2021, this institute has made available 279 internal grants for the benefit of students studying in PALOP and Timor-Leste: Angola (40), Cape Verde (44), Guinea-Bissau (60), Mozambique ( 35), São Tomé and Príncipe (60) and Timor-Leste (40).
For the same period, 210 undergraduate, master's and doctoral scholarships were available in Portugal for students from Angola (26), Cape Verde (36), Guinea-Bissau (33), Mozambique (54), São Tomé (33) and Timor -Leste (24). Two masters students from Senegal and two from Colombia also benefited.
However, the final number is expected to be similar to that of the previous academic year, since the Senegal competition was deserted, Guinea-Bissau did not fill all the vacancies and some scholarship holders did not have their scholarships renewed for non-compliance with the regulations.
For their part, the authorities of Timor-Leste, due to the covid-19, understood that the conditions were not met to proceed with the opening of a competition and subsequent sending of students to Portugal and did not open the scholarship competitions.
Camões also annually allocates about 50 defense scholarships, to be used in military education establishments in Portugal, and police higher education scholarships (33 scholarship holders in recent years, only for scholarship holders from Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea -Bissau).
The covid-19 pandemic led to changes in the usual tendering procedures for these cooperation grants, namely the possibility for digitized documents to be accepted by the Portuguese Ministry of Higher Education.
According to Camões, "it was also cautioned that no fellow would travel to Portugal without having previously secured a place of residence".
