Orchestra Generation already has authorization to hire missing teachers

A Orchestra Generation, created to combat social exclusion, which is working this school year with only half of the teachers, today received authorization from the Ministry of Education to hire the missing teachers.

According to the orchestra's director, Helena Lima, in statements to Lusa, the authorization of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation will thus enable the 36 hours available to be completed.

The head calculates that the hiring process takes about two weeks, which means that “at best the new teachers will take office at the end of this month”.

The lack of teachers harms about 1,350 children and young people.

There are many students without instrument classes and schools where only “two teachers are trying to teach 100 students,” Lusa Helena Lima told on Friday when the situation of lack of teachers was reported.

“ Even in cases where students have a teacher, they also end up being harmed in orchestra class, because it is not possible to teach an orchestra class when many of the students are not having an instrument class”, he explained.

There have been other years when the process has been delayed. Last year, for example, the authorization of guardianship arrived only on October 12.

“It is very difficult to work in these conditions,” the teacher said on the same occasion, saying that they launched a public petition this week asking for “the urgent issue of the authorization required to hire missing teachers, allowing the full functioning of the Generation Orchestra”.

Although the hiring of teachers for this school year is already authorized, the petition will remain active, since the undersigned, who at 4:00 p.m. today had about 2,900 signatures, also asks for a “lasting solution” and the recommendation approved by the Assembly of the Republic in 2021.

At the time, MEPs agreed to create a multi-annual support model to ensure the stability of the project and its teachers as well as the continuity of activities.

However, after five years, the project continues to survive in a situation of great instability.

The Generation Orchestra began at Amadora to help the most disadvantaged students through music and orchestral practice. Today, it is present in 16 groups of schools – 14 in the Lisbon region and two in Coimbra -, mostly located in poorer neighborhoods.

The project “has demonstrated, over 19 years, that music can transform lives and create opportunities,” reads the undersigned, which recalls that the Orchestra has allowed access to music to thousands of children and young people in need who would hardly have this opportunity.

This is a project with pedagogical coordination of the Artistic School of Music of the National Conservatory and administrative management of the Association of Youth Symphony Orchestras System Portugal and the impact of this work has been awarded with national and international distinctions, such as the 50-year Commemorative Gold Medal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, awarded by the Assembly of the Republic.