The teachers will not mobilizehowever they are not at all satisfied with the professional career nor with the evaluation and performance management (AVAC). The prognosis is of “collapse” because they report that the entire structure of the new remuneration model, especially that of theAVACdoes not take into account the specificity of his work. They trust to be able to achieve regulatory changes, but they also ask their ministry, that ofeducationto take the initiative to transfer to the Public Service that there are evaluation parameters that have little to do with the reality of their work. He announced it yesterday Sergio Estevesgeneral secretary of Union of Public Education (SEP)during the entity’s annual general assembly, in which, despite disagreements with the reform, the union ruled out mobilisations.
“The same cannot be applied to everyone, special bodies have their own way of working”
The professional career it is the system that allows civil servants to move up in job category and also salary. The model is structured in three levels with two degrees each. One of the main discrepancies of the SEP with the Government is that the proposal does not take into account the total number of years worked by the teacher as an interim. In other words, the union claims that the masters do not have to start from scratch when they become fixedbut that the previous years worked as an internship are counted. Public Function has rejected the approach of the teachers and has chosen to establish a system of accelerators to progress faster in the degree.
The executive’s final idea proposes a year of acceleration for workers who have accumulated between one and six years of internship, two years for those who have between six and nine, and two more years of exemption from the next evaluation of merits for those who exceed nine years. For example, an official who needs four years to access a new evaluation of merits you can do it after three if you have a year of acceleration. The SEP he explained that the measure is insufficient because it groups very different trajectories in the same strip. For example, a teacher with one year as interim will receive the same recognition as another who has accumulated six. “It’s not the same to wear one year as six, nor nine years as wearing eighteen”he explained. For this reason, the union defends that the experience should be valued adapted to each teacher.
“If each worker has to define three goals in a year, they will stop doing other priority work”
The meeting also questioned the new performance evaluation and management system. eThe union warned that the application of the modelas it is proposed, will generate an overload of work in the centers and will end up affecting the functioning of the education system. “If each worker has to define three objectives, monitor them and within a year, they will stop doing other work that is a priority to focus on this“, remarked Esteves. He also questioned whether the same evaluation criteria can be applied to other areas of the administration, since he considers that the teaching job has particularities that cannot be measured with the same parameters. In this sense, he asked that Education defend a specific regulation for the teaching body and wanted to remember that the sector has its own law that allows the professional career and the evaluation of performance to be adapted to its needs. “Equity cannot be confused with equality and we believe that the Public Service has sinned by wanting to apply the same to everyone. But it is impossible, because special bodies exist for a reason, because they have their own specificities and functioning“, he explained. Finally, Esteves questioned whether the individual objectives can be evaluated in two-year cycles, since he considers that the results of the changes applied in the classroom cannot be evaluated until there is academic data from the students. “The first cycle that is proposed from theAVAC it will last a year but I don’t think it will get there”, he warned.
A NEW DIRECTION FOR JANUARY
the assembly it goes too agree to call elections for renew the executive committee of the SEP. The process opens following the departure of two of the current members and the end of Esteves’ mandatewho will no longer be part of the management body. The union published the official call yesterday and, from now on, a period of one month opens to submit candidacies. The forecast is that the elections will be held before Christmasso that the new executive committee can be constituted in January.
