This article aims to contribute to the debate on the significance of geographical education as part of the development of a society in which information and communication technologies have made profound changes. It starts with the discussion on how Geography is taught at international scale, and then addresses the intersection between research produced in the reports on the introduction to professional practice and related study plans, concerning the 2 nd cycle of the teaching of History and Geography, in force since 2010 in Portugal. Based on the outcomes of the discussion, we will consider the research trends and whether or not they are suited to the latest recommendations on geographical education, in particular the training of Geography teachers, according to the assessed proposals which were submitted following the new law regulating the training of Geography teachers in Portugal. Among the main outcomes, we highlighted the diversity of topics addressed in the internship reports and the growing attention to new technologies in the cycle of studies under analysis, which suggests the adequacy of the future Masters in the Teaching of Geography at the University of Porto (starting in 2015/16) to the European recommendations on these matters.

The development of spatial thinking is a key objective of Geographical Education. Because of that, it is important to analyse if the national exams of Geography of Portugal are able to evaluate this key objective of Geographical Education. We analysed all the questions of the three exams of Geography of the year 2019 and we classified these questions using the Taxonomy of Spatial Thinking developed by Jo and Bednarz, 2009. We concluded that in these Geography’s exams of 2019 the majority of the questions evaluate the spatial thinking in a low level. The questions that ask a spatial thinking in a middle level are almost not existing and there are few questions evaluating the spatial thinking in the higher level of the taxonomy. Because of this, the results of our research are in the same line of the results of other authors that defend the national exams of Geography of secondary education in Portugal need to change and also the curriculum of this education level for the subject of Geography

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