“I believe it was agreed among everyone that we will close point by point and, therefore, we will not wait for the last point of negotiation to start implementing, for example, the recruitment rules,” stated Fernando Alexandre.
The Minister of Education, Science, and Innovation spoke to journalists after a meeting where he presented the government’s proposal for a negotiation protocol to revise the Teaching Career Statute (ECD) to the union structures.
Hoping to conclude the process by 2026 so that the new statute can be in effect in 2027, Fernando Alexandre noted that some matters will be implemented before this deadline as they are negotiated.
Maintaining essentially the priorities identified in the previous negotiation protocol before the government’s collapse, the executive intends to begin discussions on the teacher profile, followed by recruitment and career entry conditions.
“There are cases that have raised issues,” he pointed out, citing qualifications that, contest after contest, continue to cause doubts among candidates and in the verification process.
“A very significant reform in this area is needed, and this was acknowledged here for the first time today. It was the first time in a meeting with the unions that the urgency to solve this problem was almost unanimously recognized,” he reported.
Yet, similar to what happened in 2024 when the government and unions first discussed the negotiation protocol for the ECD revision, it was precisely the order of discussion points that generated the most discord, according to the minister.
According to the proposal by the authorities, after recruitment and career entry, the discussions will focus on teacher training and professional development, teaching time organization, working conditions, career structure (including salary scales), and finally, performance evaluation.
The National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), which did not sign the negotiation protocol in 2024, believes that the matters placed last by the Ministry should be prioritized.
“It would be through this that we could signal to society and the country that, indeed, the valorization of the teaching career will advance and will advance with a recognition of the profession,” stated Secretary-General Francisco Gonçalves to Lusa agency.
Additionally, Fenprof insists on the need to set a deadline for concluding negotiations and regrets that topics like retirement are not planned, an issue also raised by the Secretary-General of the National Federation of Education (FNE).
“Several topics are missing here that we wanted to list, including the retirement age limit, which is in the current Statute,” said Pedro Barreiros, who also mentioned fiscal compensations and support, career repositioning, and correction of overtaking and possible compensations for top career teachers not covered by the service time recovery.
Teacher representatives now have until November 13 to send counterproposals to the Ministry of Education and will meet again on the 19th to sign the negotiation protocol. Negotiations are set to begin on December 5.
