Ministry of Education meets this Thursday with all unions

The Ministry of Education will bring together today, the 12 union organizations that are participating in the negotiations on the regime of competitions and placement for a new round of negotiations

Credits: LUSA

This is the fourth round of negotiations for the revision of the recruitment and mobility scheme for teaching staff and, for the first time in these negotiations, the Minister of Education and Secretary of State will sit at the table in the ministry, starting at 10:00, with all trade union organizations simultaneously.

The request for a single negotiating table had already been presented for the last meeting two weeks ago by a platform of eight organizations, including the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), but at the time it was rejected because not everyone agreed.

The negotiations began in September and in the last meeting, on January 20th, Minister João Costa presented a set of proposals that include, for example, the increase in the number of pedagogical area boards, from 10 to 63, reducing their size, the fixation of teachers in school boards in 2024, the integration of 10 thousand teachers and the increase of vacancies for access to the 5th and 7th grades.

The measures did not convince the unions, which criticized the Ministry for not presenting answers to the main demands of the teachers, especially regarding the accounting of all the time of service that was frozen.

For this reason, the organizations decided to keep the strikes going, with four strikes currently underway, called by several unions.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education met with the unions again last week, for a technical meeting in which the proposals presented for the regime of competitions and placement were discussed.

Teachers have been on strike since December to demand better working conditions and pay, an end to precarious work, faster career progression, and full time service.

The first strike was an initiative of the All Teachers Union (STOP), which called for an indefinite strike that will last at least until February 24. At the beginning of the 2nd period, the Independent Union of Teachers and Educators started a partial strike for the first period of classes, which is still ongoing.

A strike by districts, which ends next week, is also underway, called by a platform of eight union organizations, recently joined by the National Federation of Education, and a national strike of three days, which started on Wednesday, of the National Union of Graduate Teachers.

They were, however, decreed minimum services for the STOP strike, in force until the end of the week, but ensuring that no educational establishment is closed, regardless of the strike that teachers and staff join.