According to the press release sent to Lusa, EPL-CELP has carried out "in recent months, several actions to improve its school space, in order to safeguard the well-being and safety of the children and young people enrolled and the interests of the rest of the educational community".
Thus, classrooms and student support spaces, outdoor flooring, safety nets and awnings, the office, changing rooms and the staff canteen were refurbished, the institution listed.
To ensure that students are safe and supervised, an electronic card system was implemented, intended to control students' entry and exit and to monitor, by "parents and guardians, the meals and products purchased at the bar and stationery shop", it indicated.
The school also stated that a Learning Support Centre was implemented, "which aims to provide an appropriate response and facilitate full social inclusion".
Regarding the teaching staff, and to provide them with greater stability, "an extraordinary external competition was held to create a dedicated teaching staff for the EPL, which is in the final stages", he stressed.
On 28 June, the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation stated that the Portuguese Government had created a solution for the 70 teachers "in a situation of serious precariousness" at the EPL, which would be implemented once all the unions had expressed their views.
"We had a situation of serious precariousness for 70 teachers at that school and what we did was reach an agreement to provide these teachers with job stability and ensure that they are treated equally with other teachers, which was not the case and had not been the case for two years", Fernando Alexandre told journalists after meeting with the unions representing the teachers.
The negotiations aimed to draft a bill regarding the extraordinary external competition for the selection and recruitment of teaching staff at the EPL.
The EPL, created in the 1980s, was managed by the Portuguese Teaching Cooperative in Angola (CPEA) until 2021, but as of September 7, 2021, it has been managed by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, following a dispute with some cooperators.
The Portuguese Ministry of Education had overseen the institution since 2006, although the school was managed by a private entity that had a management contract with the State.
When the CPEA's management was transferred to the Portuguese State, there was no transfer of the teachers' employment relationship and, in order to continue teaching, the teachers had to sign a new contract, losing benefits and remuneration, which most of them accepted.
Fernando Alexandre assured that the Portuguese Government gives "great importance" to Portuguese schools abroad, namely the EPL, where "more than 2,000 students study, where there are many Angolan students and also children of Portuguese parents, children of Portuguese executives who work in Luanda, Angola, where they work in companies that have a very important connection" with Portugal, and that it is necessary "to be sure that this school has all the conditions to operate".
The start of teaching activities at the EPL will take place on 18 September.
