The Regional Secretary for Education urged students to contribute to the promotion of equality of opportunities for the sake of a better and fairer world. Cláudia Cardoso spoke at the opening session of the “Celebration of Equality,” an event promoted by the Tomás de Borba Basic Education and Secondary School under the EQUAL Project.

The Secretary reminded that schools are a privileged space for the promotion of equality of opportunities as schools are a privileged space where students “learn their role in the present and future society.”

Before an auditorium full of students and teachers from several schools, Claudia Cardoso urged “all of you to reflect on your contributions or on what you may contribute to make a better world.”

Cláudia Cardoso recalled that teachers play a meritorious role in this area and that students are “key players as they are at a growth and learning stage, being the men and women of tomorrow,” hence they should effectively “contribute to a better and more equitable world.”

Stressing that “schools are indubitably a space for the promotion of equality” and mitigation of differences, the Regional Secretary for Education reminded that such “does not mean that we all have to be equal. It means the respect for difference in the assurance of equal access to education.”

Hence, the Government official also recalled that “it is in the daily effort that schools promote equality and the respect for cultural, ethnic, gender, religious diversity by acknowledging the value of difference.”

For Claudia Cardoso, the promotion of equality of opportunities is “an urgent task in which we all have a role to play.”