Teachers demands are fair, says Portuguese president

Portugal’s teachers have several understandable and fair demands, said Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who called on the government and unions to establish a constructive dialogue and avoid a prolonged strike period.

“Tomorrow [Wednesday], a new round of talks begins. I consider it positive to have understood what has been resolved and what has not, but maybe easy to resolve and what will be difficult to resolve. And now we’ll see how the conversations go. We have to have conversations in good faith, on both sides, they have to be constructive conversations,” he said.

De Sousa, who was speaking to journalists at Infarmed in Lisbon on Tuesday, said the claims of the teachers were fair, adding that “those that relate to the proximity of residence, of home in relation to the school where they will teach, such as bureaucracy” and “others that have to do with aspects of the status of teachers.”

In his opinion, “there is room for dialogue between the government and the teachers.”

“The only one that I see as more difficult, because it implies a lot of money, or implies a substantial change, is the recognition – especially if it’s all at once if it’s not phased in – of what the career sacrifices of teachers were really due to successive crises in the past. But that is still a matter of seeing whether there is room or no room to try to equate that. I think it is difficult, but it is possible that there is,” he added.

According to the president, initially, when the teachers went on strike, “the Portuguese thought it was a kind of prolongation of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year.”

“Now they’re starting to have very serious problems, picking up children, not picking up children, students special education, scheduling family life, worrying about assessments. And I think that everyone stands to gain, the government stands to gain, teachers stand to gain, if this dialogue goes well,” he stressed.

(Inês Lima | Lusa.pt)

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