Teachers on the street warn Costa: ″This time, nobody deceives us″

Some were in favor of unfreezing careers and the respective retroactive payment; others for salary increases or geographic mobility and against the excessive bureaucratization of education. But all united – professors, assistants, technicians – in Porto for the same cause: the defense of public choice. And with a message for the prime minister, as a way of negotiating pressure: “This time, nobody is fooling us! If Costa doesn’t back down, we’ll be back next week!”

Manuela Santos has been a Philosophy and Psychology teacher for 34 years and will never reach the top of her career, due to the freeze. “The most I’m going to achieve is to reach the eighth step and I’ve been excellent in the evaluations for three consecutive years”, laments that teacher from Gondomar.

“It’s not just the thawing of careers and salary increases. I’m here asking for more discipline in schools. The level of demand has to be higher. There’s a lot of facilitation in teaching. And too much bureaucracy. Teachers need time to adjust update but spend their time filling out papers”, added José Ribeiro, a teacher from Guimarães living in Porto.

Carlos Fidalgo, on the other hand, paraded, between the Marquês do Pombal and the Aliados to ask for “dignity and respect” for the teachers’ careers. “It’s not just the time they took from us, but a series of situations in which the Government ignores us”, justified the teacher from Matosinhos.

geographic mobility

Among the demonstrators, who also paraded through Santa Catarina, were operational assistants, students and senior and specialized technicians who protested against municipalization and demanded the opening of vacancies that guarantee geographic mobility and binding with a fixed-term contract.
“The technicians are permanent needs and not temporary needs”, Cândida Silva made clear, adding that, in her case, she asks for the consolidation of geographic mobility.

In the end, the protesters left the guarantee that the fight will not end and without concessions: “Whoever teaches you to fly cannot crawl”, they proclaimed.