Blog 7: Education in Portugal

On March 20, 2013, Jonathan Blitzer wrote an article on the downfall of the education policy in Portugal. Apparently, the Portuguese government is not making the best decisions for the education system. According to the article, in movement to improve the quality of education, the government combined public schools into clusters known as “agrupamentos. “ They did this so it would be easier to monitor the children, but the violence within these mega groups is ridiculous. Later in 2010, the Education and Science Ministry approached a plan to merge elementary, middle and high schools which came to be very chaotic. This plan is just not right for Portugal for the main reason of over overcrowding in schools and the lack of teachers. According to the article, more and more teachers are retiring, at a rate faster than those being hired. Not to mention the escalating violence within the school and the major budget cuts that is affecting everyone from the teachers to the parents.

This article is just heart-wrenching because neither the children nor the teachers have a voice in the decisions controlling the classroom. The people that are making these decisions have no clue how hard it is to control a mega group of three thousand students while managing to keep the violence down with limited administration. The children are truly suffering here, not knowing if they will go home to their parents because of the high volume of violence inside the school. I pray someone comes in and give them the space they need. I hope someone can instill hope and faith into the schools for a better education system. It is easier for policy makers to make these decisions because they are not the ones looking at these children suffer daily. I believe outside forces may need to come in and help the education system in Portugal.

Bria Broadway 10:48pm March 20, 2013

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/lowering-the-education-tab-in-portugal-comes-at-a-human-cost/