PSD President Luis Montenegro marked the start of the school year on Tuesday, leaving a “word of encouragement” for students and gratitude for teachers, who “must be valued and respected.”
“At the beginning of the school year, words of encouragement for students entering a new stage in their lives. Thank you to the teachers who, through their hard work, help shape a generation every day and who need to be valued and respected. And to the parents, a word of hope,” wrote Luis Montenegro on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
The 2023/2024 school year begins this Tuesday for about 1.3 million students in grades 1 to 12, but many will not yet study all subjects due to a shortage of teachers in schools.
However, teacher shortage may not be the only factor keeping students out of school as the school year is expected to start much like the previous one, with strong opposition from school officials.
At the end of last week, even after nearly three thousand teachers had been hired, schools still had about 1,300 empty timetables, and on Monday the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) reported more than 100,000 students without a teacher.