The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture revealed today that regional schools will not be responsible for the preparation of the class curriculum project.

Speaking at the opening session of the 2nd Regional Meeting "Sharing Good Teaching Practices", Avelino Meneses stressed that this measure aims to "promote the simplification" of teachers' duties, which should "focus on what is really important: developing educational and scientific activities and working with students."

"As a sign of the policies we will continue to pursue in the future, schools will have the possibility of not implementing the class curriculum project. We believe that, in this particular case, it has resulted in an overload of paperwork without any visible benefit", stressed the Regional Secretary.

"We are not saying that the class curriculum project will end right now," Avelino Meneses stressed, adding that this matter can only be ceased by legislative amendment."

The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture also added that some amendments to the Teaching Career Statute are under consideration "in order for teachers to spend less time in activities of little importance." Hence, "the time spent by teachers at school would be focused on teaching activities as well as on the provision of support to students."

In his speech, Avelino Meneses restated that school failure "is the main scourge" the regional education system is facing. In order to fight it, the Regional Government "has implemented a numerous measures; some of which have shown encouraging results."

In this context, the government official stated that the measures implemented "will continue in force and may be even reinforced."

From now on, we will develop an integrated plan to combat school failure, which will be implemented in the school year 2015/2016. According to Avelino Meneses, the preparation of the plan "will depend on the promotion of dialogue and the analysis of the situation; it will involve the technicians of the Regional Directorate for Education, teachers and school managers."

This dialogue will be further supported by educational experts from several universities, including the University of the Azores, stressed Avelino Meneses.