Yuri Guimarães, cooperative member and guardian, reacted, in statements to Lusa news agency, to the decision of the Portuguese State to take on a transitional basis the direct management of EPL, previously managed by CPEA, which ceased functions after a dispute with some cooperative members.
The cooperative also stresses that he doesn't understand the decision of the Portuguese Ministry of Education "that never responded to the requests to intervene and the respective denunciations made by the cooperative more than four years ago, duly registered".
"I don't understand why, without any intention or commitment to the truth that they have shown by ignoring and remaining silent in the face of our complaints, why today they come publicly to manifest this transition without any prior communication to the educational community of EPL," he said.
Yuri Guimarães also questioned the fact that the State initially consented to "all the irregularities and, on the eve of being called to testify in court, makes this decision".
"We don't have any justification for this sudden position - because as soon as the cooperative members informed us of what was going on, and requested the intervention of the Portuguese state so that they could at least pressure for an AGE [General Assembly] to be held, we were ignored, because they said that everything was fine - in other words, that the school was being well managed", he stressed.
In his opinion, the "school owner allowed an unaccredited cooperative to manage his school for more than 20 years without a management contract".
For the cooperative, the situation was thus maintained by the Ministry of Education because "the cooperative served only as an instrument to finance a public school, where the State has no burden and does not ensure the rights of students enshrined in the basic law of the Portuguese education, the student statute, the statute of the teaching cooperatives and the Portuguese Constitution".
Yuri Guimarães stressed that they have always defended equal treatment in relation to other member states of the African Portuguese-speaking Countries (PALOP).
Information provided to the Lusa agency by the Portuguese Ministry of Education indicates that, with the cessation of functions of CPEA, "the Portuguese State takes over the direct management of the Portuguese School of Luanda on a transitional basis until the completion of the tender procedure for the new management".
The Portuguese School of Luanda - Center for Portuguese Language and Teaching was created under the protocol on the Portuguese Language and Teaching Center of Luanda, signed between the governments of Portugal and Angola, having been formally established in 2006.
The termination of CPEA culminates a series of episodes that opposed a group of cooperative members and EPL's management. Last year, some 300 cooperative members of CPEA signed a petition calling for an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the revision of the bylaws and proposed the dismissal of the cooperative's current social bodies and the appointment of an interim management committee.
At the time, the CPEA rejected the accusations, claiming that it was an attempt to seize power and justified the increases imposed in the 2020/2021 school year with the need to ensure the survival of the school.
The increase in tuition fees prompted several protests by the cooperants who went to court to stop the measure. On July 9, the court in Luanda issued an injunction preventing the increase in fees and ordering the CPEA "not to place any obstacle and to accept the enrollment of all students educated by the cooperative members for the school year 2021/2022" and to refrain from "any conduct that puts at risk the fundamental right of the students to attend school".
However, the cooperators who had filed the lawsuit against the CPEA complained that the managing body of the Portuguese School was disobeying the court's decision by continuing to charge fees and make enrollments with the increases imposed.
Following this complaint, the district court of Luanda sent to the Public Ministry a request to open a process for the crime of disobedience against the legal representative of the Portuguese School in Luanda (EPL), according to an order to which Lusa had access.
At the time, Lusa contacted by phone Horácio Pina, who took over the management of EPL, but he only said he had not been notified of any information from the court, referring to the Portuguese Ministry of Education any clarification on the matter.
For the Portuguese Ministry of Education, and "as with other Portuguese schools abroad, EPL has proven to be an educational institution of great prestige, playing a key role in promoting the teaching and dissemination of Portuguese language and culture and a relevant role in strengthening the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the Angolan State and the Portuguese State".
"The Portuguese State remains committed to fulfilling the core objectives of the Portuguese School of Luanda and to strengthening the linguistic and cultural ties between the two peoples," the ministry continues.
