Teachers will be on strike for the benchmarking tests starting this Friday, in a strike without minimum services called by the Union of All Education Professionals (Stop) for the recovery of service time.
The strike focuses on all the work of preparation, application and evaluation of the benchmarking tests and lasts until thursdaywhich coincides with the dates of the evaluation tests of artistic education and physical education for the 2nd year of schooling, which began on Tuesday.
Two weeks ago, after the last negotiation meeting with the Ministry of Education, the national coordinator of Stop said that the strikes would continue, considering that the proposals presented by the guardianship are “crumbs for some” teachers
At stake is a set of measures with an impact on the professional career of teachers in office since August 30, 2005, that is, those who went through the two freezing periods during the last economic crisis, with the aim of correcting the asymmetries resulting from frost.
On the other hand, teachers require full service time recovery (six years, six months and 23 days), as well as the term of the vacancies for access to the 5th and 7th levels.
Unlike previous strikes, this time the schools You will not have to provide any minimum serviceafter a decision of the Arbitral Tribunal that considered that the strike does not “seriously and irremediably affect the right to education (…), therefore, there is no violation of an imperative social need.”
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In the sentence, the Arbitration College points out that the evaluation tests are not comparable to national exams or final tests of the 3rd cycle, since they are not decisive for the academic progression of the students or for access to higher education.
“They are tests that, despite their importance in view of the objectives that they intend to achieve, have not yet received the consensus of the educational community, first of all because they are not counted in the students’ grades, so they do not have influence on the final grade. classification assigned to them”, they add.
The arbitrators also recall the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, in which these tests were suspended, maintaining that “in the field of the education sector, the “minimum works” implemented were limited to ensuring the provision of education (…) and final exams.
After the first five days of the stoppage due to the evaluation tests, a new period of stoppages follows, between May 16 and 26which coincides with the tests of 5th year of Physical Education and 8th year of Information and Communication Technologies.
Meanwhile, the strike by districts also continues, called by the platform of nine union organizations, including the national federations of Education and Teaching (FNE and Fenprof).
Also without decreed minimum services, the strike, which takes place this Friday in Castelo Branco, began in Porto on April 17 and ends on May 12, in Lisbon.
Source: Observadora
