The PSD parliamentary group asked the government on Friday how many new beds will be available for students in residence halls in the 2022/2023 school year, accusing the executive of “total failure” in the case.
In a question to the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, the PSD points out that in 2018 the government launched the National Housing Plan for Higher Education (PNAES) “with the aim of comparing the supply of beds in public, with the 15 thousand existing” in that year.
The PSD writes that the then Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor, said that the PNAES “from now on aims to double the housing supply for students in higher education in the next decade, thus increasing the period 2019- 2022 about 12 thousand new beds, distributed throughout the national territory.”
“Now, as of today, and according to official information available on the PNAES website, there were 15,073 beds in public housing at the end of 2021. Today, after four years, the same government that wants to reach 2026 with 30,000 beds in the public network of housing, it has not yet managed to increase the supply, the country continues with the same supply of 15,000 public beds that it had in 2018. For the PSD, these results represent a total failure of government policy on students housing,” they accuse.
In the opinion of the Social Democrats, this government plan is “nothing more than a gigantic plan of unfulfilled promises and with known results”.
In this context, the PSD wants to know “how many new beds will become available for housing in residences in academic year 2022/2023”, what is the “geographical distribution of new beds that will become available from next academic year” and “what are the reasons why to justify the implementation of the multi-year goals previously laid down in the National Student Housing Plan”.
“What alternatives are being considered to meet the needs of students who do not get a place in a higher education residence, nor do they fit into the income brackets that give access to supplements to take advantage of the housing allowance?” questions left to the executive.
For the Social Democrats, the executive should “replace plans and advertisements with the construction of more housing and requalify existing housing”, and contract with the social sector, municipalities, IPDJ and the private sector to make more beds available.
The goal is to get “a better price per bed through protocols between the central state and these partners, setting aside all ideological biases that just leave more students without housing.”
The PSD also warns that “it is important to consider the need for more time between the higher education placement result and the start of the academic year”, as students currently only know which educational institution they are attending and where only “one or two weeks before the start of classes”.
This Thursday, the prime minister took on the goal of having Portugal 26,000 beds for students by 2026, in a speech in which he identified the issue of housing as one of the biggest obstacles to accessing higher education.
This objective was expressed by António Costa at the Academy of Sciences in Lisbon, at the end of a session aimed at signing 119 student residency projects in higher education and attended by the Ministers of Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, and the Presidency. Mariana Vieira da Silva.
Source: DN
