Indicadores de desempenho e a accountability nas instituições de ensino superior: uma perspetiva socioeconómica

Abstract

The current investigation work objective is to analyze the recent public administration reforms, as well as to assess the impact of those in University Education in Portugal. The New Public Management and New Governance are two of the models adopted during this period of public sector restructurings. The first model has as main goal the application of private management principles in the public sector. The second model, once the State is losing centrality, is being forced to change resources and distribute objectives and for this the direct intervention of the society is crucial.

In the wake of these reforms the education was not an exception, being the University Education forced to a higher level of transparency at accountability and performance indicators, in order to gather higher amounts of investment from the State and also from other funding sources. To achieve these goals a higher level of comparability and competitiveness was stimulated among Portuguese public universities.

This study was based in content analysis methodology done to 13 reports of Portuguese public universities and also in the study of a group of factors that could affect the performance indicators presented in this document. According with the results it is possible to conclude that the Portuguese public universities still have a long path to run in what concerns to provide financial information. The results demonstrate that the dimension, the web of universities ranking and the funding achieved from other sources affect the performance indicators divulgation.