Students returned today to the redeveloped school in Tramagal after major works

Around 100 students from the Tramagal Primary and Secondary School returned to classes in that educational facility today, after extensive renovation work, costing around one million euros.

“After an intervention to requalify and modernize the facilities, the doors of the Escola Básica e Secundária Octávio Duarte Ferreira, in Tramagal, opened again today to receive students, teachers and educational assistants”, indicated the Chamber of Abrantes, in an informative note .

Almost 40 years after it was opened, the establishment was the target of the first major requalification project, an investment in the order of one million euros, with community support of 85% as part of an application to the Center’s Operational Program, with a execution period of 180 days (six months), but which extended over time.

According to the president of the municipality, cited in the informative note, this intervention at Escola do Tramagal “closes the cycle of valorization of the municipality’s school park, after the requalification of Escola de Alvega”.

“This was an urgent intervention at Escola do Tramagal and we managed to open the school to the educational community today”, declared Manuel Jorge Valamatos in the same note, “apologizing for the delay in the works” and explaining that “interventions were carried out that were not initially planned, for the improvement of the school”.

The mayor indicated that “in the next three weeks work will still be carried out inside the school” and that “it is the intention” of the municipality of Abrantes “to build a synthetic grass field so that it is available to the community outside school hours ”.

The work began on the 18th of July and, when it was found that it would not be possible for the school year to start in that educational equipment on the 14th of September, due to the work in progress, the municipality and the management of the School Group went looking for alternative spaces for around 100 students to start classes.

“There was a dysfunctionality in the work there and, in time, we managed, in mutual assistance with ARTRAM (Tramagal Pensioners Association) and other institutions, such as the school and the parish council, to find a solution for relocating the school in the first period [letivo] in spaces that have become important as a solution to be able to carry out this major intervention” of requalification, the mayor told Lusa, at the time, regarding a school that was gradually losing physical conditions, but also the ability to attract students.

“After 40 years of lack of intervention, I think we will be able to bring the school, from an infrastructure point of view, up to the demands of today and reinforce the positioning of the Tramagal school” in the municipal educational context, said Valamatos, having indicated that Abrantes managed to “reverse a two-decade cycle” of student loss in the last two years.

The project to requalify and modernize the school included “work in the four blocks”, with the requalification of 11 classrooms, 16 activity rooms, three laboratories, an auditorium, a teachers’ room, the library, pantry, two kitchens and two cafeterias, along with flooring, accessibility conditions, window frames and paintings, as well as removal of asbestos fiber coverings, in a space where infrastructure is “degraded and inadequate” or “insufficient and non-existent”.

Escola Básica e Secundária Octávio Duarte Ferreira, which once had almost 600 students and today has less than 100, belongs to School Group No. 2 of Abrantes and offers, in addition to the 2nd and 3rd cycles of basic education, secondary education, with a training offer of professional courses that enable the continuation of studies in higher education or technological specialization courses.