Teachers are available to go on strike at exam time if the next Government does not respond to some of the main demands within the first 60 days of being in office.
The warning is made by the “Missão Escola Pública” movement, which this Saturday sent a letter with 11 points to the leader of the AD, Luís Montenegro, and the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Among the demands is the recovery of all teachers’ service time and the end of tests in digital format, this school year.
Without these commitments, teachers are available to go ahead with an exam strike, guarantees Cristina Mota, from the “Missão Escola Pública” movement, in statements to Renaissance.
“We intend, in a preventive manner, to alert the next Government that, with regard to education, it is not just service time that needs to be recovered: the elimination of quotas for access to the fifth and seventh step, cost allowances for displaced teachers and the elimination of assessment tests in digital format”, highlights Cristina Mota.
List of 11 demands of the “Public School Mission”
– Scheduling the recovery of all service time;
– Change to the current Teacher Assessment model;
– Elimination of access quotas to the 5th and 7th levels;
– Change to the management model, making it democratic;
– Definition of cost allowances for displaced teachers;
– Annulment of the possibility of recruiting teachers by principals, nullifying this idea of strengthening their autocratic powers;
– Decree of the end of the tests in digital format;
– Implementation of measures aimed at combating facilitation and indiscipline;
– Review of the decree that defines qualifications for teaching;
– Implementation of measures that promote true inclusion, both for students with special educational needs and foreign students;
– Scheduling work meetings whose objective is to replace essential learning with more demanding programs, as well as redefine the workload of different subjects.
See the press release from the “Public School Mission” (PDF version) here.
