The third term starts today, but most students no longer return to school and continue to study at a distance, in a model that parents, school principals and teachers believe can work better now.
Schools have been closed since March 16, when the Government decided to suspend all face-to-face teaching activities, and students exchanged the classroom for a space at home and began to take online classes and receive assignments by email or by post.
With the beginning of the third period, the distance learning model returns, since the executive decided to maintain the suspension of in-person classes for all students in compulsory education, only admitting the eventual return to schools of students from the 11th and 12th grade, due to to the Covid-19 pandemic.
After the two weeks before the Easter holidays, marked by a sudden transition to the virtual world and an effort to adapt, both students and families, as well as schools, to the new reality, parents, teachers and school principals are now confident in regarding the return to school.
"Now there is already some learning and more guidance and organization, in national terms and within each school, which allows the work to be less difficult," the secretary general of the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) told Lusa on Monday. ).
The president of the National Confederation of Parents' Associations (Confap), Jorge Ascenção, also said he was confident with the restart of classes, as mistakes were corrected and flaws were corrected in the last two weeks of classes in the 2nd period, which have already passed to the distance.
Some of these errors were related to the unequal access of students to the technological equipment needed to follow the classes that took place on online platforms and to the work materials that teachers distributed by email or by Whatsapp.
During the first weeks of distance learning, several associations representing different members of the school community denounced that not all students had computers and Internet at home and, therefore, were excluded from classes.
However, schools made an effort to mitigate these difficulties, with some making it possible to survey paper works, and some public and private entities also joined in, ensuring the delivery of materials at home or the distribution of computers and tablets by needy families .
The problem also did not go unnoticed by the Government, which created a solution for this third period based on television, through ttransmission of pedagogical content on RTP Memória aimed at students from 1st to 9th grade.
A space grid #EstudoEmCasa, which will occupy part of the RTP Memória program during the third period, from 9:00 am to 17:50 pm, with 30-minute classes for the various subjects, is already known, but the teachers also want access to the themes that will be covered in each broadcast. in order to prepare the work with the students.
“For teachers to be able to better organize classes, it was important for us to know what programmatic content will be shown on television” from April 20, said Filinto Lima, president of the National Association of Directors of Groupings and Public Schools (ANDAEP), in statements to Lusa on Monday.
Still, in general, everyone is satisfied with the Government's decision to maintain distance learning during the third period and only resume classroom classes for 11th and 12th grade students if there are guarantees of safety.
The measurements were announced last Thursday by the prime minister, António Costa, who also announced the suspension of the assessment tests for basic education and the 9th grade exams, keeping only the national exams for the 11th and 12th grades that are necessary for access to higher education.
However, the period in which these exams take place has been postponed, as well as the end of the third period, which could extend until June 26, so that secondary students have more time to prepare for the exams, if the face-to-face classes cannot be resumed as early as May.
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