Students from Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe have in recent days accused the management of the Porto Professional School of Economics (EPES) of racism, overcrowding in accommodation and delays in delivering scholarships, which they depend on for housing.
An official source at the Angolan Embassy in Lisbon told Lusa news agency this Tuesday that after learning of these complaints and accusations from students from Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP), it decided to “support the students” and “contact their families.” ” and maintain “regular contact with the school”.
In addition to these initiatives, the diplomatic representation will also move forward with a more comprehensive survey to identify how many students there are in Portugal in these circumstances of delayed grants and allegedly living without habitable conditions.
“We need to have the general picture, as we realize that EPES students will not be the only ones in the country with these complaints,” added the same official source from the Embassy.
Regarding accusations of racism, overcrowding in accommodation and delays in delivering scholarships, one of the directors of EPES, Paulo Pinhal, declared last Saturday to Lusa that the accusations made “no sense” and that they did not correspond “to the truth”. .
However, Paulo Pinhal admitted that there were "one-off" delays of more than a month in the delivery of grants due to the Community Framework and the new software for approving food and accommodation subsidies.
The person in charge also admitted that there may have been "a specific situation of overcrowding", but highlights that "the concern at the school is that the accommodation conditions offer the minimum number of bathrooms, which does not exceed five or six students per bathroom".
Carla (fictitious name), a 16-year-old student of Angolan nationality, lived with 35 other girls in the EPES dormitory, where she was only entitled to a bunk bed and a closet. The student told Lusa that she was cold in the dormitory and that the rent was 150 euros/month.
The EPES dormitory was recently dismantled because the school decided it needed "more classrooms", explained Paulo Pinhal, admitting, however, that EPES was visited in September by three institutions, namely by Public Health, to identify accommodation situations. .
When asked if there was a delay in delivering the bag, Carla said it took up to two months. “I went hungry because I didn’t have the money (…) I never thought I would go hungry in Portugal. I thought Portugal was better”, he says, remembering that he never went hungry in Angola.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) confirmed to Lusa that it had been aware of the accusations against EPES "since October" and that it had contacted Porto City Council to carry out inspections, as well as informing the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). ) about the situations described involving students from PALOP.
