The Government of the Azores has awarded priority status "to the consolidation of a public network of school establishments that will provide a quality education to all citizens, said the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture in Ponta Delgada.

Speaking at the ceremony to lay the first stone of the new "A Passarada" School, Avelino Meneses acknowledged that "the right of families to choose the school for their children substantiates the Government's decision to support, in addition to the public network, private and cooperative school establishments to a certain extent."

For Avelino Meneses, who represented the President of the Government at this ceremony, the support to private education should contribute to "achieving the main goals of the Regional Education System; it should never be "contribute to the differences between the public and private education system and much less to the intensification of the traditional social inequalities."

Moreover, the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture pointed out the competence of teachers at "A Passarada" School over the years, stressing their intervention in preschool and elementary school levels to "prevent early developmental delays that would be, otherwise, irreversible."

In his speech, Avelino Meneses conveyed his expectations that this college be "in the future, as in the past, an important partner of the Government in the promotion of school success, which is the hallmark of the most developed education systems."

Founded on October 1, 1959, "A Passarada" currently has 140 students; its new facilities will be built in an expansion area of Ponta Delgada, representing an investment of 1.5 million Euros with the support of SIDER.