The Council of Ministers approved a new procedure for the recruitment of teachers

The Council of Ministers approved this Thursday a new regime for the management and recruitment of teachers, which has been discussed between the Ministry of Education and trade unions for more than five months.

The Council of Ministers said in a statement that the changes in the recruitment and placement of primary and secondary education teachers and specialized teaching technicians serve the purpose of “bringing together, anchoring and linking” professionals.

Priorities, the government adds, are “fighting insecurity, strengthening the stability of access to a career, direct communication within a group or school structure.”

On the other hand, the new regime will also reorganize the staff of the teaching zone, which has increased from 10 to 63, thus reducing geographic areas, “responding to the needs of the system at a time of teacher shortages,” the report said. .

The decree-law adopted on Thursday was presented to the trade union organizations a week ago at an additional meeting to the negotiation process that began in September and ended without the consent of any of the 12 organizations.

At the end of the meeting, Minister of Education Joao Costa gave a positive assessment of the negotiation process, stressing that the final proposal reflects a number of concessions from the government.

With regard to the initial proposal submitted in September, the executive branch has not abandoned some measures, such as allowing part-time teachers to teach in two schools and creating boards of principals from each state of the Educational Zones to exercise this governance. .

In other respects, on the other hand, it came close to the demands of the trade unions. This includes dynamic linkage criteria, salary increases for contracted teachers, reduction in the geographic footprint of the staff in the teaching area, and direct hiring by schools, which from the very beginning merited strong opposition from organizations.

On the part of the teachers, the trade unions justified the lack of agreement by stating that the final proposal retains the red lines that have already been identified in previous meetings.

Under the new regime, about 10,000 teachers will be hired at the end of this year, and a dynamic binding model will be established in addition to the brake norm with annual job openings. Two new salary scales have been created for salaried teachers.

In 2024, it is planned to open 20,000 vacancies in the staff of the school to secure 90% of related teachers in the staff of the school, leaving only 10% in the staff of the pedagogical zone, to meet temporary needs.