The president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, will start four days dedicated to education this Wednesday, with a meeting with the main teachers unions, and end on Saturday with a conference in Porto.
The initiative, presented by the party with the aim of “diagnosing the state of education in Portugal and presenting alternative policies”, starts today with a meeting between the social democratic leader and the nine trade union organizations of teachers and educators that are part of the trade union platform established last year.
So from 2:30 PM Montenegro will meet at the national headquarters of the PSD with representatives of the nine structures, including Fenprof (National Federation of Teachers) and FNE (National Federation of Education).
According to a party source, the S.TO.P (Union of All Education Professionals) was also invited, but this structure meant that there were scheduling problems to not participate in the meeting.
At 5 p.m., the PSD president will meet with the Association of Private and Cooperative Education Establishments (AEEP), visiting Rainha D.ª Amélia Secondary School in Lisbon on Thursday morning.
On Friday, Montenegro will visit the Technological, Artistic and Professional School (ETAP) of Pombal (Leira), where a lunch is planned in the canteen and later a meeting with mayors.
A working meeting of the PSD National Strategic Council (CEN) in the field of education is planned for Saturday in Porto, concluding the initiative with a conference on the theme “Education: Meetings on the Future”, at Teatro Rivoli, which is concluded by Luís Montenegro.
The conference will debate topics such as pre-school education, new educational models or what ‘being a teacher’ means today, with speakers such as the Secretary General of the National Education Federation (FNE), Pedro Barreiros, researchers and teachers of university students Susana Peralta and Pedro Freitas or the former advisor to the National Education Council Alexandre Homem Cristo.
In recent weeks, Montenegro has blamed the government for starting the school year with “almost 100,000 students” without a teacher, claiming that the country’s teacher shortage has worsened annually.
As for the main demand of teachers in recent years – the full reinstatement of the six years, six months and 23 days of employment that the government has not taken into account as part of career liberalization -In February at the TSD congress, the chairman of the PSD defended the “restoration of as much time as possible” and called on the government and the unions to find “a balance”.
He then urged the Prime Minister, António Costa, to take the teachers’ case into his own hands, as the Minister of Education, João Costa, “has no arguments” to overcome this instability.
“We see the Prime Minister saying that recovering from this time will cost one thing, the Minister saying it will cost another. There are ministry officials who give figures to the press that are very different. We need someone to put the house in order. At this moment I really think that only the Prime Minister can solve the problem”he declared in Vila Real in March.
Source: DN
