The Portuguese Communist Youth (JCP) today criticized the new PSD/CDS-PP Government’s option of combining the education and higher education portfolios in the same ministry and accused the executive of wanting to “commodify education”.
In a statement sent to newsrooms, the structure that represents young people from the PCP considers that the “merger into a single ministry of the portfolios of education, higher education, innovation and science has a particular negative meaning”.
“Not taking into account the specificities and problems of basic and secondary education, nor of higher education, this merger has the sole objective of reducing expenses and attacking public services, commodifying education, removing responsibility from the State for its constitutional task of guaranteeing education to young people, deepen the path of elitization of education and attack the teaching of April”, he accuses.
The JCP considers that “a Ministry of Youth will be of no use if the policy does not aim to end national exams, end tuition fees, build public accommodation, combat precariousness, increase young people’s salaries, ensure the right to housing.”
The young communists argue that this Government’s program constitutes a “setback and attack on the rights of youth” and remember that the PCP announced that it will present a motion of rejection in the Assembly of the Republic.
“We reject a path of continuation of right-wing politics, whatever form it takes, a policy of attacking the rights of youth, of cuts, of degradation of public services, which limits our aspirations and deepens our problems”, they emphasize.
In the note, the JCP guarantees “resistance” and indicates that “primary and secondary education students, higher education students, young workers, will be able to count on the JCP and the PCP to fight in the streets and in the Assembly of the Republic against right-wing and its policies of attacking our rights, education and the April Constitution”.
In the new organization, the Government will have a Ministry of Youth and Modernization, which will be led by Margarida Balseiro Lopes, and a Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, which will be supervised by Fernando Alexandre.
The inauguration of the ministers of the XXIV Constitutional Government is scheduled for Tuesday at 6:00 pm and that of the secretaries of State for Friday.
Tags: Communist Youth criticizes education higher education ministry
