Meetings will focus on a new competition regime and other issues that have been at the center of teachers’ demands, such as the full counting of service time
The teachers’ unions have been called to a new round of negotiations at the Ministry of Education on February 15 and 17, the general secretary of the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), Mário Nogueira, told Lusa news agency on Thursday.
The meetings, confirmed by the Ministry, will be held in a single table and will focus on a new competition regime, but also on other issues that have been at the center of the teachers’ demands, such as the full counting of service time.
The previous negotiation session, the fourth in a process that began in September 2022, was held on February 2 with the 12 union organizations that have been participating in the negotiations about the regime of competitions and placement of teachers in schools.
In the end, the teachers’ unions considered that “practically nothing came out” of the meeting with the Ministry of Education officials, who they accused of wanting to reach only “small agreements.
The Secretary of State for Education, António Leite, considered that there were advances in the negotiation meeting about the recruitment and mobility regime and said he expected an agreement, at least, in some of the proposals.
In January, the Minister of Education, João Costa, presented a set of proposals that included increasing the number of pedagogical area boards from 10 to 63, reducing their size, fixing the number of teachers on the school boards in 2024, integrating 10,000 teachers, and increasing the number of access places to the 5th and 7th grades.
The measures did not convince the unions, which criticized the Ministry for not presenting answers to the teachers’ main demands, especially regarding the accounting of all the service time that was frozen.
The teachers’ struggle has included successive strikes and demonstrations, with a new protest planned for Saturday in Lisbon.
