An Inspection Finds Fernando Pessoa University Enrolled 52 Students Without Legal Grounds

An official inspection has concluded that the Universidade Fernando Pessoa (Fernando Pessoa University), a private institution based in Porto, enrolled 52 students without legal grounds — the latest and most concrete finding in a long-running controversy over admissions to Portugal's private health degrees.

The conclusions come from a report by the Inspeção-Geral da Educação e Ciência (IGEC — the General Inspectorate of Education and Science), seen by the newspaper Público. According to that account, inspectors found a pattern of irregularities in how the university brought students in, and recommended a series of measures to bring the 52 enrolments back within the law.

What the inspectors found

The report describes three main problems. First, the apparent favouring of particular candidates over others in the admissions process. Second, the absence or insufficiency of the evidence that should document each applicant's admission exam — the paper trail that is supposed to prove a place was earned on merit. And third, what the inspectors characterised as a "parallel entry channel" into the Medicina Dentária (Dentistry) course, a route that sidestepped the normal selection rules.

Taken together, the findings point not to a handful of clerical slips but to a systemic weakness in how one of the country's larger private universities managed access to a sought-after and heavily regulated health programme. The IGEC's proposed remedies are aimed at restoring legality — regularising the situation of the 52 students where possible and closing the routes that let them in.

A university already under scrutiny

Fernando Pessoa is no stranger to questions about its health courses. Its degree programmes in Medicina (Medicine) and Dentistry have drawn repeated attention from the Agência de Avaliação e Acreditação do Ensino Superior (A3ES — the Higher Education Assessment and Accreditation Agency), which has previously demanded fuller explanations of how the institution runs and staffs them. The new IGEC findings feed into a wider national debate about integrity in admissions to medical and dental training, where demand vastly outstrips the number of places and the incentives to bend the rules are correspondingly high.

For a private university, the stakes are reputational as well as legal. Accreditation and the confidence of regulators underpin the value of the diplomas it awards; a finding that dozens of students were admitted improperly cuts to the heart of that trust — and to the position of those students, who may have done nothing wrong themselves yet now find their places in question.

What This Means for Expats

• Do your due diligence on private courses: Portugal's private universities recruit heavily among international students. Before enrolling — especially in a health degree — check that the course is accredited by the A3ES, whose register is public.
• Admission by the rules protects you: A place won through the proper exam and selection process is far harder to challenge later. Keep copies of every admission document you submit and receive.
• Watch how this resolves: How the authorities handle the 52 enrolments will signal how firmly Portugal intends to police private higher education — relevant to any family weighing a degree here.

The inspection stops short of a verdict on individual students, but its message to the sector is blunt: the route into a Portuguese health degree is meant to run through a fair exam, not around it.