President defends ″agreement to recover time of service of teachers″

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, defended the replacement of teachers’ full-time service.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa recognizes that there are many fair fights on the street right now. In a joint interview with “Público” and RTP, he gives the teachers’ demands as an example, recommending that the two parties maintain the negotiation.

“There has to be an agreement, and the agreement has to include, in addition to the sectoral points where there have already been partial agreements or approximations of points of view, two fundamental issues: one is the recovery of service time“, commented Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The President of the Republic admitted that full recovery financially “is not possible at this time”, as the Government says, but recalled that there was already some recovery in other times. “Why not phase the recovery…”

Asked whether it was worth extending the recovery of service time to all public service institutions, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa evaded the question and remained in the field of teachers. “Inequalities between teachers need to be corrected, because, for example, the difference between the youngest and oldest teachers who are closer to the retirement age limit is that, in these, 70% will still make it to the top. The younger teachers won’t go”, said the President of the Republic, without ceasing to give the teachers and government officials a shrug. predisposition to think about students, families, society. Three school years in a row surpass even that clash of the April Revolution with two school years.”

For Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the solution “is to negotiate”. And the journey has to be made by two. “The government is bad if it breaks. Unions and teachers will not forget it. Trade unions do wrong if they break off negotiations or if they stretch beyond a certain limit what their struggle is.“, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, giving as an example the hypothesis of there being a “valuation strike”. The interview was made before the last round of failed negotiations, on Thursday, from which Fenprof announced a nationwide strike on May 6, which will affect ratings.

“It is very important to be in tune with public opinion, which has existed since the beginning. There were two school years that were very disturbed by the pandemic. If there is a third, the problem is another. discrimination between students, and it’s not between public and private, it’s within the public”, warned Marcelo, explaining why the parties are wrong to break off the negotiation. “I travel the country. I know that there are a number of schools that, in fact, have strikes and, therefore, students who are going to have a success and evaluations have a differentiated, discriminatory treatment, favored in relation to others”, warned Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.