The PS denied this Wednesday that the end of bribery in the Teaching of Portuguese Abroad (EPE) and a change of guardianship will solve all the problems of this teaching outside the country, being accused of ignoring the complaints of emigrants.
????????It is not correct to attribute the reduction of EPE students to enrollment rates”, said the socialist deputy Paulo Pisco in the plenary session of the Assembly of the Republic, adding that the problems are not due to the guardianship (Ministry of Foreign Relations).
The socialist spoke during the appreciation of the petition “Portuguese for All – For the right of our children and young people to a free and quality EPE” and nine parliamentary initiatives, from seven parties, on Portuguese abroad.
In response, representative Rodrigo Saraiva, from Iniciativa Liberal, said that this position of the party with a parliamentary majority ignores the fears that the Council of Portuguese Communities, the Government’s advisory body on emigration, has recently conveyed to the various legislatures of groups
For the PSD, deputy Maló de Abreu lamented “divestment” of Portuguese abroad, more and more a bet as a foreign language and less as a mother tongue.
And regarding the reduction in the number of students, the Social Democrat defended: “It is urgent to make way????????
For Paula Santos (PCP), “not everything is going well in the EPE”, she considered that the deputy Paulo Pisco said, warning about the reduction of students, but also of teachers.
The deputy Rui Tavares (Livre), before the harmony of the deputies around the importance of the EPE and the Portuguese language abroad, questioned: “After all, what is missing if there is consensus?????????
And he defended an investment in the Portuguese language, “not only as an effective link, but also as an investment”.
The petition appreciated on this day was formally presented to the Assembly of the Republic two years ago and gathered more than 4,500 signatures, achieved “thanks to the collective effort of compatriots to reside in Portugal and abroad“, in a total of 50 countries involved, according to the Regional Council of Portuguese Communities in Europe (CRCPE), promoter of the initiative.
The petitioners defend the differentiation of educational policies according to the recipient “through an adequate institutional response with the return of the responsibility of the EPE to the Ministry of Education.”
The CRCPE recalls that the implementation of bribery in the EPE, in 2014, “had devastating consequences, with a reduction of almost 10,000 students in a single academic year????????
“With the maintenance of the tuition fee (which applies exclusively to Portuguese students in parallel education at EPE, unlike foreign students who do not pay fees in integrated education at EPE), the number of students has continuously decreased”, indicates the Council.
According to the balance of the measure, presented by the CRCPE, “the number of students who attend the official EPE network increased from 54,083 in 2014 to 36,662 in 2021”, which is what the petitioners claim.”the immediate reversal of the bribe????????
The petitioners also request that “Portuguese residing outside the old continent are no longer excluded from this educational process,” as well as the expansion of the EPE network for Portuguese children and those of Portuguese descent residing outside of Europe.
Following this petition, the PCP presented a bill defending the free EPE, the Bloco de Esquerda another to defend the elimination of bribery for the EPE and guarantee of free adopted school textbooks.
The Chega bill aims to modify Decree-Law No. 165/2006, of August 11, to promote a free EPE abroad for Portuguese and Portuguese-descendant children and young people.
Livre’s draft resolution recommends that the Government defend the teaching of Portuguese as a mother tongue abroad, while the Pueblo-Animais Natureza (PAN) presented a draft resolution to recommend that the executive guarantee the right of access to EPE to Portuguese and Portuguese descendants residing abroad.
The PAN also presented a bill that determines in order to collect tuition/registration fees from young people Portuguese and descendants of Portuguese who attend or will attend the EPE.
Chega also defended a draft resolution for the right of children and young people of Portuguese and Portuguese descent to a quality and free EPE abroad.
The Liberal Initiative draft resolution defends the teaching of Portuguese as a mother tongue for Portuguese and Portuguese descendants outside Portugal, and the PS recommends that the Government “strengthen EPE in its different dimensions and intensify the use of digital technologies to make it more attractive, interactive and adjusted to the profile of the students”.
Source: Observadora
