In Loulé, the works are about to start again. In Faro, there are several rooms ready, but waiting to be delivered. The new school year does not mean renewed and better conditions for the students of the Secondary Schools of Loulé and João de Deus, from Faro, who will continue to have classes in containers, for the fifth consecutive school year and for an indefinite period. Also in Silves there will be classes in containers.
These temporary structures have been in operation for about four years, due to the delay in the interventions being carried out in the educational establishments, which are the responsibility of the company Parque Escolar. It took a while for a PCP delegation, led by Algarve deputy Paulo Sá, to visit schools in Loulé and Faro, just over a week before classes start.
According to the communist parliamentarian, the situation he found on the ground is worrying and has already motivated requests for explanations by the PCP to the Ministry of Education, in the Assembly of the Republic.
Paulo Sá began by visiting the Secondary School of Loulé, where, «despite the resumption of works having been announced for August, there was no worker or activity». What there are are containers, where classrooms and the cafeteria, among others, will continue to function.
“No information was given to the school board. No date was given for the restart or completion of the works. This is the fifth consecutive school year with part of the classes in containers. The school's new auditorium is also unusable», said Paulo Sá, recalling that the execution period for this project was 18 months, but 46 have already passed since its beginning, in November 2010.
"In Faro, the situation is different. The works were never officially suspended, “but they always moved at idle speed, at a snail's pace”. "Part of the school has been transformed into a shipyard," he added.
Here, there are «13 classrooms, three offices, a student lounge and seven toilets for men, women and the disabled, completed and ready to use» and the main entrance to the School has also been completed. But they will remain empty, as Parque Escolar refuses to receive them from the contractor.
"They only accept to receive the complete work, because otherwise they will have to pay for the intervention that has already been carried out", he said, recalling that the same question was raised at the Vila Real de Santo António Secondary School. The problem is that there is no end in sight for this work, as there are several infrastructures that are part of the project that "haven't even started, such as the Auditorium" and others still underway, namely in the "gym, cafeteria, kitchen and bar'.
«There are finished rooms, gathering dust. If the school could use them, all students could have classes in quality facilities, right at the beginning of the school year”, he illustrated.
In the case of the VRSA school, the situation was eventually unlocked, after pressure from students and different parliamentary groups. "We want the same policy to be adopted in Faro and that the tutelage gives instructions to Parque Escolar» to receive the classrooms already completed.
But, on the part of the Government, there are no guarantees in this regard. Asked about the maintenance of containers in several schools in the country where the works of Parque Escolar have not yet been completed, the Secretary of State for School Administration João Casanova de Almeida said that he could not put forward a precise date for its completion.
"[the containers] will be [classrooms] as long as they are needed, as long as the works are not finished," said the member of the Government, on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Lejana 1st cycle School, in Faro, last week, arguing that the situation was caused by works that were stopped or that had to be resized.
A position that the communist deputy does not accept, since, he stressed, five years of classes in containers is a long time. “There is an entire generation of students who went to secondary school in schools that were turned into shipyards. This must be resolved quickly”, he illustrated.
In addition to the schools in Loulé and Faro, there will also be classes in containers at Silves Secondary, where works resumed last July. Here, some of the new structures are already completed and functioning, namely the sports pavilion, as well as the library, laboratories and workshops, installed in an area resulting from the adaptation of the old workshops of that school.
PCP asks the Government for justifications in the Assembly of the Republic
The Parliamentary Group of the PCP advanced with two initiatives in the Assembly of the Republic. The Communists asked the Government for a justification "for the delay in completing the requalification works of the Secondary School of Loulé, which have been dragging on for five academic years, and for the dates foreseen for the restart and completion of these works."
On the other hand, they questioned the Ministry of Education «on the reasons why Parque Escolar is preparing to refuse to receive from the contractor spaces already completed at Escola Secundária João de Deus, leading to hundreds of students continuing to take classes for the fifth time. consecutive school year, in containers'.
«Still in relation to the Lyceum of Faro, the PCP wants to know if the Government “will transmit to Parque Escolar guidelines for it to receive from the contractor all the spaces that are completed and ready to be used”, what measures will be taken to complete the works and when this will happen.
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