The Universidade Aberta is a collective entity within statute law, having scientific, pedagogic, administrative and financial autonomy. The reason for this increase is a new government programme for technological updating of the teaching profession which has been confided to the Open University and which enrols about 5,000 teachers per year. Dislogo The Dislogo programme of the Catholic University of Portugal is a postgraduate distance education programme for executives in business and banking which started in 1994. It is a high quality and advanced programme which does not require the daily trudge to university, being, as it is, compatible with work and professional activity. The learning materials which are sent to the participant at his place of residence or work are didactic materials of excellent quality ,and a tele-matic system exists which permits continuous communication between the participants of the course and the university instructors.
Some sessions use the videoconference room to facilitate experts from foreign universities.
This level is considered to be of a high professional level equivalent to that of a certificate in the UK or an associate degree in the US . The administrators say that students 'have to see the eyes of the teacher' and that students like to come to Lisbon from all over Portugal 'to buy clothes for their spouses' and do not see the compulsory workshops as a burden.