Education minister says teacher strikes endanger public schools

Education Minister Joao Costa said this Saturday that teachers’ strikes during national exams and final grades are endangering the public school.

“We want the school year to end in peace that belongs to all students, not least because we are already approaching the time when those who really depend on the public school, those who have no money, suffer the most. to pay for tutoring, they have no other incentive. These successive strikes question the essence of the public school,” Joao Costa said in an interview with Lusa. agency.

The Ministry of Education, speaking on the sidelines of the finals of the National Reading Plan competition in Torres Vedras, is awaiting the decision of the Court of Arbitration on the request for minimum services during the strike.

“It is extremely important that we understand that this period of the end of the school year, the end of assessments, is a very important period for the future,” he stressed.

Asked about compensation requested by the National Confederation of Parents’ Associations, João Costa replied that he was considering “extending some of the most effective measures of the learning recovery plan”, taking into account not only the strikes, but also “the prolonged period of damage to learning.”

Regarding the negotiation process with trade unions representing teachers, the Minister of Education reiterated that “the government has taken important steps in boosting the careers of teachers” with measures worth 300 million euros.

“Now we want these measures to come into full force and for teachers to feel the impact of these measures on their lives,” he stressed, citing as examples the thawing of careers and the subsequent increase in the salaries of thousands of teachers, as well as an increase in salaries for hired teachers .

However, he said, “there are issues for negotiation”, citing as examples the uniform training and regularization of the professional position of technical assistants and specialized technicians in schools “who in many cases live in precarious situations or also have a salary situation. that this is not enough.”

At the opening of the final of the National Reading Plan competition, the official encouraged young people and their families to read, believing that growth and development are impossible if the population does not read.