On the edge of the Algarve mountains, in the village of Alte (Loulé), there is the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School, a place where all students, teachers and assistants know each other by name and live in a “family environment”. But this is more than just a school. It is also a project for the development of the interior of the Algarve, through various initiatives organized with the oldest population in the village.
Here, the rule of teaching students through a “normal” training offer is no exception, but this institution becomes different from all others we find in the region due to the work it has been doing.
By being located in the interior of the Algarve, this school gives students a “different experience”, begins by saying Tânia Teixeira, director of the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School, in an interview with Sul Informação
«Everyone knows everyone's name, whether they are students, teachers or assistants», which makes the whole environment experienced by the corridors «very similar to that of a family».
This environment leads students to «create bonds, start to pass on the message, become ambassadors, and transmit what they lived or live around having studied here».
Celebrating 30 years, the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School emerged from a group of promoters organized in a cooperative, constituted by the Municipality of Loulé, Alte Parish Council, In Loco Association and some other individual cooperators, as a hub for local development.
The school promotes professional courses that “allow students not only to acquire the levels of schooling corresponding to the 9th or 12th grade, but, at the same time, to acquire professional training”, says Maria Teresa Laranjo, director of the cooperative.
When students complete the courses, they can then go on to higher education studies, but they can also immediately join the labor market, because "they have a certification in a professional area".
In addition to having a fleet of buses, which guarantees free transport for young people who come from other parts of the region, it also has a cafeteria-bar with meals for students, library, auditorium, medical office, as well as several rooms. of classes.
But, with each passing year, the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School finds it more difficult to fill all the vacancies it opens for the courses it teaches.
Last year, despite the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of students who sought out the School was practically identical to previous years. This year, "although we still don't have a very clear notion", Tânia Teixeira reveals that "the numbers are smaller".
The school has a limit of 210 students, “since the facilities no longer allow” but, as it is private, if it fails to open the minimum number of classes for each course, its funding will be affected.
The fact that the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School is located in Alte may be one of the problems that is causing many young people not to choose this institution to train.
Young people "like to go to a Secondary School where they go in the morning, during the day they are free, then they have shopping centers and a series of attractions", but since Alte does not have them, "it is certainly not so appealing to come for a village», emphasizes Maria Teresa Laranjo.
This is one of the factors that lead young people to decide for regular education, instead of professional education.
Tânia Teixeira laments the difficulty in getting students and blames the School Groupings that have been formed and that lead students to complete compulsory education “in a closed cycle”.
The director emphasizes that, «despite the courses being similar, each school instills differences», believing that «the differences that exist in our facilities and in our courses should be enough to bring more students here».
Most students who enter this school come from various locations in the Algarve and Baixo Alentejo and choose this institution not only for the diversity of courses and training, but also because they want to «live a different experience, far from schools in population centers».
This is the case of Marta Guerreiro, a student of the Professional Course in Educational Action Technique. Resident in Albufeira, he travels every day to Alte in order to train as an educational assistant.
After starting secondary school in his city, he saw that the course he was on (Science and Technologies) was not the one he wanted. He started looking on the internet for a professional course he would like to follow and found that this school had the training he wanted.
«Alte is a little far from my home, but I know that this school has everything I need for my future, namely the course, which is the most important. The location is just a detail», reveals Marta Guerreiro.
Despite hosting “very few students from Alte”, there are young people living in the village who took their training at the Escola Profissional Cândido Guerreiro. This is the case of Ana Silva, who helps in the administrative services of the school.
Ana was born and raised in Alte. She graduated from the Professional Course in Environmental and Rural Tourism when the school opened, having been part of one of the first classes in 1991. Now, despite being an employee at the school, she opened, with her husband's help, a Café-Bar in the village , where he applies the knowledge he learned during the course.
He always felt that the school translates into «a big family» and that the young people who go to study in the village «end up with a great connection to Alte», due to the projects and activities that are developed with the local community.
In addition to focusing on training young people, this is also one of the main roles of the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School: to make them interact with the community that lives in Alte, even if only for the fact that, «daily, they come here do activities in the village, be it drinking your coffee or soda, going to the fountains for a dip or going to Queda do Vigário».
With this school, “there are young people in the village, there is life in Alte”, exclaims Maria Teresa Laranjo.
Young people who enter this school complete their studies to be ready to enter the labor market, but they also have «a lot of interaction with the older community of the village», through activities and initiatives of a sociocultural, sporting and artistic nature.
“If this school did not exist, this village had no young people, no dynamics, it would not promote activities that, in some way, establish or promote the intergenerational relationship”.
About to start the next school year, the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School is already receiving applications for Professional Technical Courses in several areas, namely, Educational Action, Commercial, Tourism, Child Support, Health Care and Environmental Management, the latter two being new.
The Health Aide course «emerged from the difficulty of having professionals» in this area, which is a pertinent offer «when we talk about very aged territories, in which many people live isolated», as is the case of the interior of the Algarve.
This course already has several partner companies and entities, «which gives us sustainability in the development of training, but which, at the same time, guarantees us employability and the realization of internships for students».
The Environmental Management Technician course, also launched for the first time, will be, "if the class opens", the first to appear below the Tagus River. It is created, “on the one hand, by environmental issues, but also by the environment in a much broader perspective”.
«We proposed to open [this course] because we are also in an area of Geopark Algarvensis territory and, at the invitation of this structure, we are awaiting the signing of a protocol as official partners of this park».
As for the courses corresponding to the 9th year of schooling, the School promotes the Education and Training Course for Computer Operators and Distribution Operators.
The Cândido Guerreiro Professional School is also linked to several projects at national and international level such as “Erasmus+”, “Youth Parliament”, “European Parliament Ambassador School”, among others.
Despite all the difficulties in getting young people to move to the interior, in order to graduate in one of the professional courses at the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School, for Maria Teresa Laranjo one thing is certain: «those who come here no longer want to go back to a “normal” school».
Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação
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