The Minister of Education today considered the success of the de-confinement process "crucial", warned that nothing is gained in containing Covid-19 and defended that students will be the ones who lose the most if the situation gets complicated.
These warnings were given by Tiago Brandão Rodrigues at the inauguration of the expansion works to the 2nd and 3rd cycles of the Parque das Nações Basic School, a ceremony attended by Prime Minister António Costa and Lisbon Mayor Fernando Medina.
In his brief speech, the Minister of Education began by recalling the times when he was a student at the University of Coimbra and when he was at Expo 98 as a volunteer, at a time when Parque das Nações was being launched and still lacked school infrastructure or of health.
“Today, a sequence of school facilities closes here. A legacy is left for all future generations that will pass through here», he said, before referring to the current epidemiological situation in the country.
“We are at a crucial moment with the end of the second school term, with teaching activities in kindergartens and in the 1st cycle. I want to say something about this process of deconfinement: the country is going through a complex period and nothing is gained”, he declared.
Tiago Brandão Rodrigues then said that he has been talking to teachers and mayors and that everyone knows that «who has the most to lose, if things don't go as desired, are the children and young people».
"We have to make the deconfinement happen as we all want, with a view to opening the third school period as we want, with the 2nd and 3rd cycles, and then we can open it with Secondary and Higher education," he pointed out.
Earlier, the mayor of Lisbon stated that the expansion of that basic school "ends the State's commitment to the city with regard to Parque das Nações."
“This inauguration culminates a path of delays, insufficiencies and difficulties in responding for 20 years to the needs of Parque das Nações, namely in terms of infrastructure that had been planned. A word of thanks and acknowledgment to the Government for the remarkable work it has performed in recent years in order to settle all outstanding issues is fair. This is basically the last responsibility of the central administration», advocated Fernando Medina.
In other words, according to the mayor of Lisbon, “the cycle of infrastructure necessary for Parque das Nações is now closed”.
“Next week, the Parque das Nações health center competition will be open. Even before the summer, the competition will open for the new elementary school designed by the late architect Manuel Graça Dias in the northern part of Parque das Nações,” he added.
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