Education Minister João Costa called this Friday “violence and aggression” in schools and used these cases “to foment hate speech”, noting that violence in this context has declined in recent years.
“Violence and aggression is just as serious as it is to use instances of aggression and violence to foment hate speech, foment ‘us against them’, foment the general idea that we live in a country where we are all are at war with each other, where schools are unsafe,” said João Costa in the debate on sectoral policy taking place in parliament today, while answering the question of the deputy of Chega André Ventura.
The minister condemned the attacks on teachers, as “all acts of violence are unjustified and therefore action must be taken”.
“Although each case is very serious – and it is very clear that every case is very serious – violence in the school context has fortunately decreased a lot in recent years,” the minister assured.
Due to the buzz in the room, Adão Silva, who leads the work, asked the delegates for “serenity”.
“Let us not deceive ourselves and create false data if it does not exist, because what really interests us is to work on the measures we have with the safe school, with the school program without bullying without violence, in a specific area of the curriculum you so reject that citizenship is to promote a healthy environment in schools,” he said in response to Chega.
According to the education minister, his ministry, in conjunction with other areas of government, is acting to respond to the problems of violence, emphasizing that “the safe school exists, it is effective” and that “the support given to teachers who unfortunately this kind of aggression”.
“In the incident registration of the school safety platform, we went from 1,263 incidents in 2019/2020 to 698 in the past school year,” he sums up.
In his speech, André Ventura regretted the attack on a teacher in Figueira da Foz, which took place outside the school center of Vila Verde on Tuesday, saying that “a teacher is attacked every three days” and that “four attacks a day take place in schools”, and leave allegations to the gypsy ethnic group in this issue of school violence.
Later in the debate, Rui Tavares, from Livre, found it “extraordinary that the only group in its own group that has news of violence against teachers, published and never denied, finds the right to stigmatize some of the our population”.
School hours to be filled have been halved
The education minister today acknowledged that the lack of teachers in schools is still an issue, but said the number of rosters to be filled is currently about half compared to the previous two years.
“During the same period last year and two years ago, we had twice as many agendas to be fulfilled,” said João Costa, who is heard in the Assembly of the Republic in a debate on sectoral policies.
In response to Social Democratic deputy Sónia Ramos, who accused the minister of “defending the indefensible” after João Costa said the school year started “with rest”, the minister admitted that the lack of teachers remains an issue, without specifying how many hours are left without an assigned teacher.
Still, he defended recent measures taken by the Ministry of Education to minimize teacher shortages, such as renewing contracts, reducing legal mobility or enabling schools more quickly.
“To say there is no effectiveness is to deny the reality,” he stressed.
After the minister’s first speech, the PSD deputy criticized João Costa, as the government official “speaks as if he had just started his duties”, despite being part of the government and the Ministry of Education since 2015.
“Running is actually a story of someone who has been saying for years that there are too many teachers,” replied João Costa, arguing that even in early 2022, the former PSD leader, Rui Rio, once again believed that there were too many teachers. to be. .
“In the past, we all knew the age profile of teachers. And what did the PSD do when it was in government? It took 28,000 teachers out of the system,” accused João Costa, adding that, on the other hand, in the past seven year they returned to schools, about 8,000 teachers, 2,000 were hired and 15,000 joined the staff.
“All this when the PSD kept saying there are too many teachers,” he insisted.
João Costa was also asked about the criteria for reducing legal mobility, which allowed him to spend 300 hours, and clarified that on the one hand there was an assessment of the most needy recruitment groups, on the other hand giving priority to the legal mobilities that were intended for inclusion support structures.
Regarding the establishment of 7,500 medical boards to analyze teacher layoffs, the minister said they are still in the assessment phase.
Source: DN
