innovations under the Technological Plan. Governmental efforts in the technological domain also included state support of a Portuguese factory that was owned by the German-based semiconductor company Qimonda AG, in Vila do Conde, Norte region, when the parent company filed a bankruptcy petition with the local court in Munich, Germany, in early 2009. Qimonda Portugal was at the time one of the top Portuguese net exporters. The European Innovation Scoreboard of 2010 placed Portugal-based innovation in 15th position, as a result of an impressive increase in innovation expenditure and output. Educational reforms The government allocated more resources for education policy and reorganised the sector aiming more choice and better quality in vocational technical education. Enhanced and improved vocational technical education programs were implemented in 2007 in an effort to revitalize this sector which had been almost discontinued after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Other education reforms included more financial support for students (in all educational levels), systematic teaching and school evaluation, the compulsory closing of some problematic and unreliable private higher education institutions (like the Independente University and Moderna University) by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Mariano Gago, and a will to rank and benchmark the higher education institutions through a newly created state-run agency (the Agência de Acreditação e Avaliação do Ensino Superior). During the XVII Governo Constitucional, the pan-European Bologna Process was fully implemented in Portugal. On the other hand, the government created a policy of certification and equivalence of qualifications for adult people with low levels of formal education who want a 4th, 6th, 9th or 12th grade equivalence without returning to school (for example, through this process, called Novas Oportunidades, adults—18 years old and older—with the 9th grade might be granted an equivalence to the 12th grade after a process ranging from a part-time 3-month programme or a 1-day-per-week 8-month programme; those who have less than 9th grade have a similar programme to get the 9th grade certification and can then apply to the 12th grade programme). The curricula do not include any classical high school discipline or a traditional examination process. These diplomas are awarded based on vaguely construed life experience. Some critics alleged this policy was an effort to make up the poor national statistical indicators on education, with little impact on the quality of the work force's qualification of Portugal in the European Union context. According to the OECD's Programme