 Other higher education courses offering a 3-year "bacharelato" degree that the newly created polytechnic institutes started to award in the 1970s and 1980s, like the technical engineering courses, the accounting technician courses, or the basic education teaching courses, had its own regulation scheme and were not recognized by the respective "Ordens Profissionais" in the field or by the State to perform the same professional activities university's "licenciados" were habilitated for (for instance, technical engineers did not belong to the "Ordem" of engineers and were awarded a limited range of engineering projects, and most teachers with the polytechnic degrees were not able to teach school students after the 6th grade).In 1999, over 15,000 students enrolled in Portuguese higher learning institutions and newly graduates in the fields of engineering and architecture, were enrolled or were awarded a degree in a non-accredited course.Those students and graduates with no official recognition were not admitted to any "Ordem" and were unable to sign projects in their presumed field of expertise.