Thousands of teachers in Portugal fear for their jobs after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposed cuts in the education sector in a bid to reduce public expenditure.
Teachers’ union Fenprof is now demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Passos Coelho after the Education Minister Nuno Crato appeared to be “unavailable” to speak to them and offer some reassurance.
In a press statement, Fenprof said it had tried to arrange meetings with the Education Minister on two different occasions, “to discuss a set of problems in the education sector”, but an adequate answer was never forthcoming.
Meanwhile, minister Nuno Crato said on Monday that the government had no intention to dismiss 50,000 teachers as was proposed by the IMF.
