What are the main complaints from parents on the eve of the start of the school year?

The school year is here. In two days, thousands of children will start returning to school.

But there are repeated complaints, from teachers and also from parents.

O Renaissance Explainer points out the main complaints.

What are the main complaints?

The answer is in the data from the Complaint Portal. And it is the parents who complain.

At the start of this school year, there were a total of 483 complaints. Of these, three out of four were sent directly to the Ministry of Education and were mainly related to the use of the Enrolment Portal, which, I would like to remind you, presented several constraints – which led to several postponements of the deadline for guardians to enroll students.

Problems that were repeated later with the voucher portal for school textbooks – and which motivated 59 of these complaints that were aimed at Fernando Alexandre’s ministry.

What other complaints have been filed?

Lack of vacancies, for example. Especially in preschool.

This is the second most reported reason. The indignation and despair of parents who were unable to find a place for their children are reflected in almost 16% of complaints.

Complaints about delays in the payment of subsidies or grants follow.

Will the number increase when classes start?

This is the prediction of those responsible for Portal da Queixa, who say it is very likely that the number of complaints will rise significantly during this month.

In fact, there are already parents complaining about the rise in the price of school supplies.

On average, parents spend 200 euros on school supplies for each student.

Is the teacher shortage still ongoing?

We know that the weekly teacher competition placed 2,500 teachers in schools, but the districts with the greatest needs continue to fail to attract interested parties.

Mathematics and Computer Science are two of the subjects with the greatest shortages. Well, no teachers have been placed in the regions most affected by the lack of teachers, in this case, Greater Lisbon, Alentejo and Algarve.

They were only placed in schools in the North region.

Why?

Due to the lack of interest of teachers in teaching in these regions, especially because it forces them to travel far from home, with all the inherent costs, especially the cost of housing.

At this time, according to the lists from the Directorate-General for School Administration consulted by Renaissancethere are no longer career teachers in these two subjects – Computer Science and Mathematics.

In total, more than 20,000 teachers are absent. With just two days to go until the start of the school year.