A professional chooses a continuing education school in two steps: first, they filter the schools by area of study , district , and type of institution , and only then do they compare , course by course, the duration, workload, and ECTS credits. This is the sequence of criteria your organization needs to reflect in its profile to be found.
The offer of executive training, postgraduate courses and MBASlums in Portugal have multiplied in recent years.
Porto Business School, Coimbra Business School, UMinhoExec And many other institutions publish their programs on their own pages, each with its own presentation format. The result is predictable: those seeking career retraining or advancement end up opening ten different tabs just to see if two schools and their courses are, in fact, comparable.
👉 Researcher in Continuing Education
What criteria are most important when choosing a continuing education school?
Professionals first filter by field of study, district, and type of school (Business School, Training Center, or College) before comparing specific courses.
- 1. School training area – Institutional specialization (management, technology, health, among others). This is the first cut any professional makes.
- 2. District – Geographic location. Decisive for those seeking an in-person or hybrid format near home or work.
- 3. Type of school – Business School, Training Center, or College. Each type carries different expectations: a Business School is associated with executive training and networkingA training center offering shorter, more applied programs, while a faculty places greater emphasis on academics and certification.
Only after narrowing down the options based on these four criteria does the professional then look at each course information sheet and compare duration in months, workload, and ECTS credits.
- • Duration in months – the calendar time between the start and end of the program. By itself, it says nothing about the actual demands of the training.
- • Workload – the total number of contact and work hours required. A 6-month training course can have 90 hours (one session per week) or 300 hours (two intensive modules per week). Only the number of hours reveals the difference.
- • ECTS - Or European Credit Transfer and Accumulation SystemECTS credits are the European unit used to measure the volume of academic work in a course. Each ECTS credit corresponds, on average, to 25-30 hours of study. A postgraduate course with 60 ECTS credits represents a very different requirement than a course with 15 ECTS credits, even if the duration seems similar at first glance.
Why is it so difficult to compare continuing education schools?
The Continuing Education Researcher already standardizes the search by training area, district, and type of school, which solves the first phase of the decision. However, the comparison of duration, workload, and ECTS credits still depends on the information that each institution fills in on its course information sheet. Some indicate ECTS credits, others do not. Some highlight the workload, others only mention the duration in months. Without this complete data, the professional cannot make a rigorous comparison even after finding the right school.
It was to reduce this friction that the Talent Portugal created the Researcher in Continuing Educationa platform where Offers from various institutions can be filtered. by area, district and type of school, and then compared course by course.
What doesn't work (and why) in promoting training opportunities.
Many entities still fail in the same three areas, which removes them from the results for those who are filtering:
- • Poorly categorized training area – A school that does not correctly fill in its area of specialization will be excluded from the results of those who filter by management, technology, or health.
- • District not indicated or incorrect – It makes the school invisible to those who filter by location, even if the program is exactly what the professional is looking for.
- • Course information sheets without duration, workload or ECTS credits. – They force those who have already found the school to contact them directly just to find out the actual requirements of the program.
Where can professionals directly compare continuing education programs?
In the Continuing Education Researcher of Talent PortugalThis tool filters schools by field of study, district, and type of institution: Business School, Training Center, or College.
The 3 filters of the Continuing Education Researcher
Training area
The specialization of the school. It's the first cut any professional makes.
District
Geographic location. Decisive for those seeking in-person or hybrid learning near home or work.
Type of school
Business school, training center, or college — each type carries different expectations.
Each filter reduces the universe of schools visible in the Researcher's results.
A professional looking for, for example, a Business School in the district of Porto It filters directly by these three criteria and narrows the search to a relevant set of schools, before going into each entry to compare duration, workload, and ECTS credits.
What does your organization gain by participating in the Continuing Education Researcher program?
Your institution gains visibility among an audience that already knows exactly what they are filtering. This starts with the school's profile, with the area of study and district correctly filled in, the type of institution clearly identified, and continues with the profile of each course, with duration, workload, and ECTS credits clearly visible.
Being well-categorized in these fields is what differentiates a visible entity from one that is ignored by those who have already filtered the options before clicking.
Also check out the services that the Talent Portugal makes available to training entities to understand the full scope of this disclosure.
