On Thursday, the Left Bloc expressed concern about how the government is preparing for the next school year and called for a focus on filling vacancies in areas where there is a shortage of teachers.
This position regarding the process of appointing teachers for the next school year was conveyed to journalists in the Assembly of the Republic by the deputy and leader of the Bloc de Esquerda, Joana Mortágua.
“The news is alarming. It is common knowledge that there is a shortage of teachers in schools and the government’s concern should be to ensure that as many schools as possible have teachers for all needs by the start of the school year,” he said.
According to the Left Bloc MP, “it is incomprehensible that at a time when everyone knows about the teacher shortage, the government says that there are still six thousand vacancies open, or calls on some teachers to terminate their contracts and become unreliable again, when they had the right to bind.”
“The problem is not that there are too many vacancies or teachers being hired. The problem is the vacancies that are not being filled. And there continue to be thousands of vacancies that need to be filled in the areas of greatest need, largely due to a lack of income and working conditions for teachers to move to those areas,” he said.
Then Joana Mortagua came to the conclusion that these are areas where housing is more expensive and where you have to pay for long trips.
Faced with this panorama, the Left Bloc MP issued a warning: “If the government is thinking about taking a holiday in August, think again, because you will have to work to resolve this mess.”
“The government must ensure that all schools have teachers in September because that is its responsibility. It is good that it stops saying that there are too many teachers or that they are linked to too many or too many vacancies. It needs to focus on the vacancies that have not been filled,” he added.
Education Minister Fernando Alexandre told reporters on Wednesday that he was waiting for a “thorough analysis” to justify opening up some 6,000 vacancies.
“When we are talking about opening up thousands of vacancies, I was hoping to find a thorough analysis to know where teachers will be allocated,” the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation said at the end of a round of talks with trade unions to discuss the new Career Regulations for Scientific Researchers (ECIC).