MECI calls Fenprof for meeting after approval of diploma

O The Ministry of Education called Fenprof for an additional negotiating meeting on Monday, already after the government approved the review of the qualifications to teach the first cycle, which the union contests.

In a statement, the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) informs that the meeting is scheduled for Friday 18:00, at the premises of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI), following the request for further negotiations submitted on Friday.

The call comes after the MECI informed the trade unions on Wednesday that it considered the negotiation process completed and that the Council of Ministers approved the decree-law that allows schools with the greatest lack of teachers to hire graduates in Basic Education to teach in the first cycle before completing pedagogical training.

Fenprof believes that the ministry has retreated due to its insistence and hopes that the meeting will be an opportunity for effective negotiation rather than a “new simulacrum of dialogue and negotiation”.

The union wants to find solutions to the lack of teachers who do not go through “the hasty reduction of the academic and professional qualification of young teachers”.

In this sense, it is important to defend vocational training as an essential requirement for the exercise of teaching and to demand structural measures to enhance the profession and the teaching career.

For Fenprof, the government’s proposal does not solve the causes of lack of teachers, does not value the profession and “is not transparent about its articulation with the new recruitment and placement regime of teachers”, that is, it does not clarify how it intends to reconcile the reduction of qualifications required with the procurement rules.

In addition, the trade unionists consider that the legislative amendment does not clearly guarantee the exceptional and transitional nature of the protection.

“There is no room for expedients that are not solutions to the problems that seriously affect the education system and the Public School”, highlights the trade union federation.

In the statement, Fenprof also recalls that the negotiating process was limited to a meeting to present the government proposal, to which it responded with an opinion sent on 30 October, without the ministry having responded to the criticisms and alternatives presented.

On Friday, in a press conference, the Secretary-General of Fenprof José Feliciano Costa accused the Government of “running through collective bargaining” and announced that the federation would request further negotiation, despite the approval of the diploma in Council of Ministers.

Fenprof also announced that it would call for the intervention of the President of the Republic, asking him to consider vetoing the decree-law, and admitted to making a complaint if irregularities were confirmed in the negotiating process.

According to the statement of the Council of Ministers of Thursday, the possibility of hiring graduates in Basic Education without completed pedagogical training is intended only for schools with greater difficulty in recruiting professional teachers.

The Government presents this measure as exceptional and provides that teachers contracted under these conditions will subsequently complete pedagogical training through a master's degree in teaching or professionalization in service.

In recent years, the use of teachers without pedagogical training allowed filling vacancies that remained unoccupied, but, in the first cycle, this possibility was limited to the recruitment group 120, of English.