BE offers bonus for laid-off teachers and demands career progression

Bloco de Esquerda coordinator Mariana Mortagua on Tuesday proposed a raise for fired teachers “so they can pay their rent” and demanded that the government value teaching careers, blaming it for a “total failure” in education.

“There are things that the government and parliament can do. Firstly, travel costs: there should be an allowance for teachers so that they can pay for housing. Today’s housing crisis is an education crisis. A solution to the housing crisis is necessary, and it is also necessary to ensure replenishment of laid-off teachers,” said Mariana Mortagua, speaking to reporters.

The coordinator of the blockade was this morning at the school Escola Secundária de Santa Maria in the municipality of Sintra, where she met with the director and demanded that the management respect the careers of teachers.

“Valuing the profession, ensuring we can attract teachers today. Gone are the days when the right and the SDP told teachers to emigrate, that we had too many teachers. It was a mistake, there were mistakes in a row, and they are now paying for themselves with a shortage of teachers in all schools,” the block leader emphasized, warning that in the high school she visited on Tuesday, “there are more than two dozen classes without teachers.”

For Mariana Mortagua, this high school “is a reflection of the country” and the “complete failure of the government to solve the problems of education in Portugal.”

The bloc leader warned that “there are teachers on staff who are overworked to fill the gaps left by teacher shortages” and there are also “teachers hired without sufficient qualifications to teach certain subjects.”

“This school and the report given to us by the school principal is a portrait of impossibility: it is impossible to run the school, it is impossible to provide quality education to students, and what is provided is the result of the efforts of teachers in such conditions,” he said.

Mariana Mortagua also said that “what hinders learning is the shortage of teachers throughout the country.”

“What hinders teaching is that the teacher has to live in a van to be able to teach. And I ask what student can learn and have quality teaching when taught by a teacher whose endeavors include living in a van or sharing a house at age 40, 50, without any opportunity to live, have connections, have a quality life, that jeopardizes education,” he complained.

Last Friday (22), hundreds of teachers and non-teaching staff took to the streets of Lisbon in a demonstration called by the Union of All Education Workers (STOP) to demand the resignation of Education Minister João Costa and to demand solutions to various problems reported in public schools.

The demonstration, which capped a week of strike called “Stop”, was the first in the 2023/2024 school year in which teachers and non-teachers vowed to continue the protest as in the previous year.

The main requirement is the restoration of the frozen service life (six years, six months and 23 days), as well as problems such as a shortage of teachers, technical and operational assistants.