PS stands ready to “continue to work for the dignity” of teachers

PS This Monday, PS announced its intention to “keep working for the dignity of public school professionals” and allowed new negotiations if the unions show that they want to “really solve problems.”

Speaking to the Lusa news agency, PS leader Porfirio Silva stressed that the party is “constantly investing” in “professionals in the field of education, namely educators and teachers.”

The Socialist MP also listed several measures already taken by his party, highlighting the fact that it was “PS governments that unfrozen careers” by allowing “more than 98% of teachers to advance one step, and of these, 90% advance two steps from 2018”.

“Over the past years, we have connected more than 14,000 teachers in an unusual way, we have approved a new teacher placement model in schools, starting in the 2024/2025 school year, to start and end life from home to back,” he said.

On the other hand, Porfirio Silva said that PS has introduced a “dynamic linking process” that allows “linking by accumulating business days, and not just three consecutive years of a full annual schedule, which many did not have access to, since there is time in this school year and 180 days of service time in the last two years.

The Socialist leader emphasized that the process “created the conditions for an unprecedented hiring of more than 10,500 teachers in just one year”, adding that it also “created a progress accelerator for teachers whose careers were most affected during the freeze.”

“PS now intends to highlight its new commitment to continue to work for the dignity of public school professionals, namely educators and teachers,” he said.

Asked how he sees the dissatisfaction of the teachers during the Portugal Day celebrations in Peso da Régua, Porfirio Silva criticized the posters used that day, which depicted the prime minister with a pig nose and two pencils in his eyes. .

“Any citizen who looks at the posters (…) understands what it is and does not see themselves that way in political debate: hate is not part of democratic politics. In a democracy, hatred does not fit into the space of legitimate disagreements,” he argued.

However, Porfirio Silva believed that “the main thing is not here”, emphasizing that it is “necessary” to look at the “reality of teachers’ lives.”

“When we hear teachers say they’ve been traveling the country for 15, 20, 25 years trying to get closer to home, it’s clear that this is a decade old problem. This problem. solve it,” he said.

The PS leader said that the government has developed a solution to start responding to these situations, despite the fact that they cannot be resolved “year after year”.

Asked how the PS feels about the open letter sent today by the Platform of Nine Trade Union Organizations to the Minister of Education asking for new negotiations, Porfirio Silva replied that so far the negotiations have been opened at the initiative of the government.

“We have already demonstrated with satisfaction that the government has changed many of its original proposals in order to get closer to the positions of the unions. (…) The government has taken this path until we understand that the unions have gone any way to help solve this problem,” he criticized.

Thus, Porfirio Silva said that the PS is open to new negotiations, as long as whoever sits at the negotiating table “cannot say again, as he did recently at the beginning of the negotiations:” we are going to enter into negotiations, but this will not leave without deals'”.

“What we hope is that, as the government has shown negotiation ability, (…) trade union organizations will show signs of a genuine desire to solve problems and save the public school, which is what is at stake,” he stressed. .