The general secretary of the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), Mario Nogueira, said this Friday that Socialist deputies in the Assembly of the Republic who are teachers and voted “against their colleagues” last Wednesday “should be ashamed of your face.”
“It is regrettable that some of our colleagues, who are deputies of the Socialist Party (PS), managed to vote against their colleagues, forgetting that if they studied in schools, they had the salary of their colleagues,” he said.
On Wednesday, the PS failed in parliament all legislative initiatives that proposed a gradual restoration of teachers’ seniority, which is one of the main demands of teachers.
“To think that in such an absolutely shameful manner they can continue to be fed by a device that keeps them as MPs, these teachers who are MPs of this party should be ashamed,” he added at the entrance to the Norton de Matos School Center in Coimbra on the day of the national strike of teachers and educators.
In his opinion, the fight that teachers are waging is a fight not only for teachers, but also for “the Portuguese and their families.”
“This inflexible position of the government, the Socialist Party and Dr. António Costa has huge, terrible consequences due to the shortage of teachers. Just yesterday [quinta-feira] We were told that in the Azores there are already psychologists and other specialists teaching in the first cycle, and this is a sector that does not have its own qualifications,” he complained.
He also told reporters that Fenprof had learned from school principals that “there are people from Year 11 without any qualifications who are applying to schools to be able to teach.”
“They can’t yet. But one solution the government seems to be finding to address the teacher shortage is precisely by making greater use of graduates who are not teachers – reducing teacher training. when we have one of the highest levels of training in the world,” he said.
Director Fenprof also emphasized that this is the first “big day of struggle this year” in the 2023/2024 school year, but he believes that “unfortunately, it will not be the last.”
On the 10th, the draft state budget will be announced, after which an internal meeting of the leadership of the trade union structure will take place, and after the 13th – with other trade unions to analyze the document.
“If this budget does not contain the first tranche of phased reinstatement, does not provide funds for schools to respond to the problems they have today, is this not a budget that points to true measures to combat instability, and not , what we have today, if the budget is more than the same, we will continue fighting. We’ll see what happens later,” he warned.
ShM // SB
Lusa/The End