The concern is not new, but it intensified when many parents tried, in the months of April and May, to enroll their children in public preschool and were unable to get a place. So far, many of the situations have been resolved, but there are children who, just a few days before the start of the school year, are still without school or have had to be enrolled in private education or Private Social Solidarity Institutions (IPSS).
Patrícia Oliveira was one of the mothers who, on July 12, decided to organize a demonstration at Loulé City Hall due to the lack of preschool places in this municipality.
With the closure of classrooms at this level of education, namely in the case of Quarteira, Origami and Fundação António Aleixo, a large number of 3-year-old children were unable to find a place in public education and, therefore, parents came together to appeal for the situation to be resolved by September.
In an interview with Sul Informação, Patrícia explains that, like other parents, she immediately enrolled in the public school on the dates she was supposed to, because she already knew that the classrooms at the school where her son attended were going to close, although the school only informed them in March, and, for that reason, even if she wanted to look for other private alternatives, she wouldn't be able to because in the private schools enrollment starts in January.
The person in charge of educating two children from the parish of Quarteira, in the municipality of Loulé, explains that this sudden closure of several preschool rooms in private and public/private education is a consequence of the “Creche Feliz” measure, in force since September 2022, which guarantees free daycare for all children up to the age of three, but has caused other constraints.
“The State does not provide any support for preschool classrooms. However, in return, it provides support of almost 480 euros per child in a nursery classroom, that is, up to the age of 3, because of the Creche Feliz measure and this is more profitable for them [the school]”, explains Patrícia Oliveira, adding that most children aged 5 and 4 get a place in the public school, but those aged 3 do not.
“According to the law, the Government does not have to guarantee places for these children. They are not included in the Cresce Feliz program, which is for children up to the age of 3, nor are they included in public schools. In other words, for our Government, it is as if children between the ages of 3 and 4 did not exist,” he continues.
After learning that many children had not been able to get a place, the parents contacted the Quarteira Parish Council, which forwarded the response to Loulé Council, to try to understand how the local authority intended to resolve the problem.
After an initial positive response, in which they were assured that the situation would be resolved, the placement lists were released again and many of the children continued to be left without a place.
“We felt that they had promised but then failed to deliver, so we decided to post on Facebook with information about the demonstration and we realised that many parents in the city of Loulé were having the same problem,” says Patrícia.
After several attempts to contact education councilor Ana Machado, Patrícia says they only managed to get a response a few days before the demonstration.
“At that meeting, they effectively guaranteed the places. The new placements were announced in those days and most of the children from the parish of Quarteira had been placed. However, the people of Loulé still didn’t have any solution and so we decided to go ahead with the demonstration,” he said.
O Sul Informação You know that one of the solutions found in the municipality, in this case the parish of Quarteira, was the construction of a temporary preschool in the facilities where the GNR operated.
Most of the 3 and 4 year old children were placed in the Forte Novo School, but just a few days before the start of the school year, the facilities have not yet been opened – which brings another problem.
Regarding this situation and the rest of the municipality, our newspaper tried to contact councilor Ana Machado to try to understand what solutions were found, but until the date of publication of this article, no response was received.
Em Faro, the situation is similar. Faced with the same problem – and knowing about the demonstration that was going to take place in Loulé – dozens of parents decided to gather in front of the Algarve capital's Town Hall, on the same day, July 12, to draw attention to the difficulty of finding places for children aged 3 to 5 in public schools.
However, in this Algarve municipality, parents complain that the local authority was “not open” to entering into dialogue and trying to find solutions.
Rita Mendonça, one of the founders of the “Education for All in Education” movement Faro”, was one of the driving forces behind the demonstration in the Algarve capital, where parents protested against the closure of the preschool at the Estrela do Mar Children's Center, part of the Vítor Reis Morais Foundation, in the city of Faro, subsidized by Social Security, which affects 17 children between the ages of 3 and 5.
Faced with this reality, guardians found it difficult to obtain places in other private institutions, IPSS and, mainly, in public education.
“I have two children, one aged 4 and the other aged 5, who could be in public school for free, but right now I’m paying for an extra year of private school for both of them so I can send them somewhere – and there are other parents like me. The thing is, for now, I’ve solved the problem, because I’ve managed to send them somewhere, but there are parents who haven’t been able to do so,” Rita Mendonça explained to our newspaper.
After contacting several groups to try to understand the situation and where their children were, Rita Mendonça says she was able to understand that «in Conceição, the waiting list was more than 29. Lejana had more than 60 children, Carmo 37, Montenegro had more than 48, Santa Bárbara more than 32 and the Bordeira school more than 17».
Although it is predicted that, by 2026, born in Faro a new school – EB 1/Jardim de Infância Afonso III, with three preschool classrooms – and that the Carmo school be refurbished, Rita fears that the start of the next school year will bring even more difficulties for parents and children living in the municipality of Faro.
“This is a structural problem that has its roots in it. With Creche Feliz in private schools, the public sector would have to provide for children aged 3 and over, but that is not what happens. The excuse is that private schools have the autonomy to do whatever they want, but then the public sector has to ensure that children aged 3, 4 and 5 have access to schools,” concludes the education officer.
As happened in relation to the Municipality of Loulé, the Sul Informação tried to contact the Faro local authority, but received no response.
In the western Algarve, Portimão is another municipality where this precariousness of places in pre-school education is a reality.
This is admitted by the vice-president of the Chamber and also councilor for education, Teresa Mendes.
Despite admitting that she does not fully agree with the “Happy Daycare” measure, the mayor (PS) admits that it “came to solve some issues at the daycare, but it also meant that there was a tree of boys attending schools from that age and this boom in boys then has to have a response [from the age of 3] and this year we started to see that this is not happening».
In an interview with Sul Informação, Teresa Mendes stresses that, given the situation of the closure of classrooms in private schools for children aged 3 and over, the Municipality held a meeting in Lisbon with the General Directorate of Education to try to understand what the solutions were. In addition, it raised the issue with the Municipal Education Council, but private schools have not presented any alternatives.
“The public school system provides places for children aged 5 to 3 and a half, who are the oldest. We do not have any children on the waiting list for this age group, but the same is not true for children aged 4 to XNUMX and a half. In fact, we do have many children on the waiting list in the public school system,” says the councilor.
To ensure that this problem does not worsen in the municipality of Portimão, Teresa Mendes explains that the Municipality has “a strategy for building classrooms at all levels of education over the next five years”.
«In the case of pre-school, we will have three more classrooms at the Alto do Alfarrobal school, three more classrooms at the EB1 school in Alvor, where a new school will be built from scratch, and we will have two more at the Chão das Donas school. Therefore, we will have eight more classrooms here, which will accommodate approximately 200 more children», he says, also reinforcing that there will be more investment in other levels of education «because the number of children has grown at all».
In relation to private companies and IPSS, the local authority says it has already made them aware so that now, within the scope of new applications that will be made to the PRR, they can also apply so that they can open new rooms.
The councilor confesses to our newspaper that in the municipality of Portimão, where 13 foreigners have resident status, the number of students has also been increasing due to immigration, but she highlights that "contrary to what many people think and say, that these children are ahead, this is not true".
“The selection criteria are those set out in the law and are the same, so they are neither at an advantage nor at a disadvantage. They compete with the same priority as any other child. But it is clear that, as we have more children, the priorities mean that there are children who are left out, children who were born here and those who were not born here,” the councillor stresses.
O Sul Informação also contacted the Ministry of Education to try to understand, at the time, the current situation regarding the lack of places in pre-school education in the Algarve and throughout the country, as well as what is being done to resolve this problem, but did not receive any response.
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