Latest news and stories about private schools in Portugal for expats and residents.
Virgílio Antunes lamented the State's policy targeting cooperative and private education, which he says has placed many Catholic schools with association contracts at financial risk.
Discrimination does not only happen at lunchtime, due to the exclusive imposition of the Ministry of Education, which merely applies what is in the law.
“Food for the rich and food for the poor”? There is talk of abject discrimination, of an institution that has supposedly lost its values. But this interpretation does not withstand close scrutiny.
The main party responsible for the discrimination of meals at the Salesians is not the school, but the Ministry of Education, along with the absurd laws that seek to regulate everything. Opinion by João Miguel Tavares
Schools can decide the price to charge private students for lunch. For those in the public network, there are limits: the State provides 1.54 euros and families pay a maximum of 1.46 euros.
The differentiation that exists at the Salesianos de Manique, in Cascais, is not repeated in other schools that also have a mixed-gender system, such as the Colégio de Albergaria and the Colégio de Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima.
In private schools that accept students from the public system, lunch vouchers cannot cost more than 1.46 euros, forcing administrations to seek other revenue streams to cover costs and maintain a 'canteen equal for all'. There are few schools left with association contracts, and even fewer that bring together students from...
A reflection on the legacy of Saint John Bosco, founder of the Salesians, contrasting his mission of helping the poor and orphaned with the current practices at the Salesians of Manique school in Portugal, where students are reportedly served different meals based on their financial status.
Parents of students at Salesianos de Manique, in Cascais, are complaining about the meals in the canteen, claiming there is food for the poor and food for the rich.
At the school in question, Salesianos de Manique in Cascais, there are 770 students in the private system who pay tuition fees, and 797 who attend the school free of charge.
The Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, has suggested reviewing the practice of allowing schools to operate both state-funded association contract classes and private fee-paying classes simultaneously. The move follows reports from the Salesianos de Manique school in Cascais, where students in the two different regimes were provided with different meal options in the canteen. The minister highlighted that such coexistence within the same building makes socioeconomic inequalities more apparent and stressed that schools under association contracts must adhere to public school rules, including price caps on meals to protect families.
Speaking to journalists, the Minister of Education stressed that, within the scope of association contracts, private schools must be aligned with the rules of public schools.
The meals served to fee-paying students at the Salesianos de Manique school in Cascais are of better quality than those provided to students studying there for free, leading some to swap the canteen for the snack bar to avoid the “poor people's food”. The minister admits that this scenario may be repeated in other private schools.
The executive director of the Association of Private and Cooperative Education Establishments rejects the idea that there is “rich people's food” and “poor people's food” in school canteens. He also warns that private institutions are bearing costs that should be the responsibility of the State.
At the Salesians of Manique (Cascais), the canteen serves 'first-class' and 'second-class' food.
There are students attending the school for free thanks to a contract signed with the Ministry of Education, but the meals differ depending on the tuition fee paid.
Meals served to students who pay tuition fees are better than those provided to children studying there for free.
Meals served to students at Salesianos de Manique who pay tuition fees are better than those served to children studying there for free, leading some to swap the canteen for the snack bar to avoid the 'poor people's food'. At the Salesianos de Manique school in Cascais, there are students who pay tuition and others who attend...
If the proposal is accepted, private schools will, for example, be able to hire a graduate in political science to teach history.
Parents, teachers, headteachers, staff and relatives of pupils from private special education schools demonstrated in Lisbon today to demand additional funding to guarantee schooling for 500 children and young people.
