SDP says the time for devaluing teachers is over, the opposition asks how to do it

The SDP guaranteed this Thursday in Parliament that the time for teacher devaluation has passed, but did not say what the next measures will be, despite the opposition insisting on knowing how the government will deal with the problems of public schools.

After the government reached an agreement with seven of the 12 unions representing teachers to restore seniority frozen during the Troika intervention, the Social Democrats guaranteed today in the Assembly of the Republic that the time for teacher devaluation is over.

“Thousands of students without a teacher, thousands of young people who don’t want to be teachers, and thousands of teachers who are tired of being teachers. Fortunately, this time has passed,” said MP Emidio Guerreiro (PSD).

A parliamentary debate organized by the PSD on the state of public schools was initially marked by an agreement reached on Tuesday to restore working hours, but after the government party said it “wants to return quality and excellence to public schools”, the opposition wanted to know how do it.

“What lie are you trying to tell when the truth is that many students will reach the end of the school year without having taught a single lesson in at least one subject? Who will take responsibility for such disastrous human resource management? Everyone here is responsible for this and destroyed the public school,” accused Chegi MP Maria José Aguiar.

For the Liberals, the main question asked by Patricia Gilvaz was “what is the future of public schools,” while the MP asked the Social Democrats to “not act like the PS and move from hypothetical problem to hypothetical problem, forgetting about structural reforms.” .

The PSD’s partner in the executive branch, CDS-PP, in the voice of Paulo Nuncio, accused the Socialists of “huge hypocrisy” for pretending that they had not governed for the last eight years and defending “exactly the opposite of what they did during board.” “.

On the left, the previous government party spent much of the debate defending the path the SDP says it is now taking that the Socialists have taken, countering arguments that nothing has been done in the last eight years.

“You are following the path that was opened by the PS,” said deputy Rosario Gamboa regarding the compensation of seniority, an argument that Isabel Ferreira also put forward when it came to free kindergartens or increasing the value of vocational education.

On the BE side, Joana Mortagua began by accusing the PSD of having a past that should not be hidden, including the devaluation of the teaching class, recalling that former Education Minister Nuno Crato said that there are too many teachers.

Therefore, he said, “it is legitimate to ask the SDP where it will negotiate when the time comes” to discuss issues such as teacher careers, hiring regimes and compensation mechanisms for fired teachers with industry unions.

Paulo Muacho from Livre also recalled the words of the former Social Democratic minister, considering that the result was the current shortage of teachers, which requires answers, but not only that. “There is a lot to do in public schools and we need Parliament to be prepared to do it,” he concluded.

The PCP’s Paula Santos began by accusing the PSD of being “one of the parties that has contributed most to the disinvestment and underfunding of public schools”, expressing concern that the government’s program lacks a coherent vision of what it intends to achieve . . sector.

However, the executive was absent from the debate and therefore questions remained unanswered, leaving the parties to wait for an emergency plan due to the teacher shortage, which Education, Science and Innovation Minister Fernando Alexandre said on Wednesday would be announced “soon”.