The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture restated in Horta that the Government of the Azores will pay "special attention" to the stability of the teaching staff on the so-called "cohesion islands.
 
If the recently introduced measure in the Teaching Application Rules for compensation of length of service as a tool to attract teachers to more peripheral islands does yield the desired effect, Avelino Meneses assured that, instead of the requirement to teach for three years at the same school, the Government will not hesitate "in the search for more suitable solutions".
 
The Regional Secretary for Education spoke at the Legislative Assembly during the discussion of a proposal for a resolution on incentives to the maintenance of teachers, which was rejected by majority. In this regard, he stressed that "there is no reason" that justifies the implementation of a policy of incentives for the maintenance of teachers, when there is a "surplus" of qualified teachers in the labour market.
 
"In the internal application, there were 365 applicants for only 110 vacancies. In the external applications, there were 2,988 candidates for 89 vacancies. In the special internal application, there were 205 applicants for 101 vacancies. In the special external application, there were 2,335 applicants for only 96 vacancies and the job offer application registered 2,189 applicants for 685 vacancies," specified the Regional Secretary.
 
In this sense, Avelino Meneses considered that the establishment of an incentive system for the maintenance of teachers on "cohesion islands" would mean "decreased rigour in the execution of public funds, if not waste."
 
If the current three-year requirement to teach at the same school "confers stability" to the teaching staff, as some have defended, Avelino Meneses stated that the new rule "is even more advantageous" because requires teachers to stay at the same school for a period of six years.
 
For the Regional Secretary, the discussion of this resolution proposal promotes the awareness that the essence of school "does not lie at all in infrastructures but rather in the quality of its human resources, namely in the quality of its teachers. They are the best partners of the Government in the daily fight against school failure and dropout; the latter are the main of ProSucesso."