Portugal: is the government neglecting schools?
The school year has kicked off in Portugal – though things are far from running smoothly. Many schools are grappling with shortages of classrooms, and thousands of pupils are still without a teacher. Is there a link to the conservative government’s austerity and reform measures in the education sector? Already many problems had surfaced during the A-level exams in June and July.
Education must be a top priority
Correio da Manhã urges:
“The start of the school year has been a spectacle of errors, mishaps and failures. After the chaos surrounding the exams, all we needed was the upheavals of September to remind us just how far we have regressed in recent times. The Portuguese people should be aware that the general decline in our young people's knowledge, as documented by the Pisa study, has not appeared out of thin air. School is a fundamental tool for the country's progress. Keeping it on the fringes of the government's priorities jeopardises our collective future.”
We can only do this together
Diário de Notícias calls on society as a whole to play its part in the reform:
“Every time an attempt is made to transform the education system through structured, serious and, above all, necessary reforms, it's as if the world were coming to an end. ... Of course it's unsettling to change the habits of decades. Of course it's unsettling to change systems, models, teaching methods, dynamics, structures and the status quo. Of course it's unsettling to see the world we know transform into something completely uncertain. But if teachers, parents, all of us as a community are not prepared to do this, how can we create a better system, better education and a better future?”