Schooling

‘In Portugal, it is unacceptable to suggest that a child is better off at a special school’

Portugal has transferred almost all children in special education to ‘normal’ schools. In the Netherlands, the number of children in special schools actually increased in recent years. Follow the Money investigated the differences in both countries.

The inclusive approach in Portugal has been enshrined in a number of education laws. In 2008, the government decided to close special schools for primary and secondary education and to place students back into regular education.

With this new legislation, the school no longer needs a medical diagnosis to intervene. The focus now is on needs rather than diagnosis. If a child is acting hyperactive and has difficulty concentrating, he/she can get guidance from a school psychologist without a proper ADHD diagnosis.

Schools draw up an individual support plan for each child with special needs (learning delays, mental or physical problems) and are assisted by physiotherapists, psychologists, speech therapists or special-need teachers. In 2017 the number of pupils with special needs in regular education had doubled and nowadays almost all children with special needs (over 98%) go to regular schools.

Portuguese schools receive a fixed amount per student and can apply for extra money for children with special needs; to pay for psychologists, wheelchair lifts or teaching materials. Inclusive policies are not only aimed at students with special needs or disabilities. Extensive attention is also paid to the backgrounds and cultures of migrant children, who nowadays constitute 15% of the pupils in primary and secondary education.

Despite the many adjustments the schools have to make in the field of education (special-need teachers, therapists) and infrastructure (e.g. wheelchair accessibility), the country spends less on education than the Netherlands. Last year education expenditure in Portugal was exactly at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) average of 5.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while Dutch spending was 5.4%.

At the same time Portugal showed – according to the OECD – a positive trajectory on the international Pisa research, which compares the scores of 15-year olds in the fields of reading skills, mathematics and sciences.

Overall scores are falling in recent years, a trend that is visible in many countries. Possible explanations are migration, increasing inequality, use of smartphones and the impact of the corona epidemic.

In 2022, Portuguese children scored around the OECD average on all three parts, higher than at the start of Pisa in 2000. In reading skills, the Netherlands has been scoring worse than Portugal for the last five years and in mathematics and sciences, the Netherlands still has a slight advantage but the level drops faster than in Portugal.

The Dutch Education Inspectorate (Onderwijsraad) mentioned Portugal in their State of Education 2024 as an example of a country where inclusion is the norm. The Netherlands itself failed to achieve that goal.
Although the Dutch Appropriate Education Act from 2014 was intended to reduce the number of students in special education, their numbers only continue to increase.


Enjoy the week            Approveite a semana               (pic JAC)

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Fire

‘Wildfires, the nightmare we have to live with’

Nine people killed – including three firefighters – and more than 170 injured in wildfires ravaging the central and northern regions of the country; in the districts of Aveiro, Porto, Vila Real, Braga, Viseu and Coimbra.

The country’s civil protection service said that last week 54 wildfires were burning nationwide with 5,300 firefighters mobilized. France, Greece, Italy and Spain have sent water-bombing planes through the EU’s mutual assistance program. The fires forced the closure of two railway lines and several motorways, including part of the main road between Lisbon and Porto.

The area burned in mainland Portugal in one week exceeds 135,000 hectares according to the European Earth Observation Service Copernicus, which uses satellite images. In Aveiro alone, the fire consumed more than 10,000 hectares of forest and scrubland in just two days. 

Furthermore, as a result of the fires, carbon emissions (CO2) – used as an indicator to assess the intensity of fires – mounted to 1,9 megatons (million tons) announced Copernicus, the worst value for Portugal in 22 years.

After a wet start this year, Portugal recorded initially 50% fewer wildfires than last year, but extreme temperatures over last weekend amid exceptionally low humidity and strong winds have given rise to blazing fires, despite the government having increased fire-prevention funding by a factor of 10 and doubled its firefighting budget after the deadly wildfires in 2017 claimed 64 lives.

Since the 1st of January, the judicial police detained 42 persons suspected of having set forest fires; 9 of whom are women. Most arsonists act impulsively or when the opportunity arises and is based on emotional suffering (depression, anger, revenge, cognitive deficit) or the excitement of seeing it burn, says Cristina Soeiro, psychologist at the Judicial Police.

Portugal’s prime minister, Luis Montenegro, has said that the people suspected of starting some of the fires would feel the full force of the law, adding that he would ‘spare no effort in repressive action’ when it came to such crimes.

‘Make no mistake. These tragedies are no anomalies but becoming the norm for our shared future’ EU’s crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarčič recently declared in Strasbourg. ‘Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world and particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.’

The good news for Portugal is that – in the meantime – rain has arrived but a collective approach to tackle the climate breakdown is further away than ever, as long as the world continues burning oil, gas and coal.  

Enjoy the week            Approveite a semana      (pic Público/Sapo)



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Seismic

‘Unfortunately nobody can predict the next earthquake’

On Monday morning August 26 at 05.11 the country was startled by an earthquake 58 kilometres west of Sines, in the district of Setúbal with a magnitude of 5.3 on the Richer scale. No personal or material damage was reported, although there were many phone calls from concerned people seeking information.

According to the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) in Oeiras, the earthquake had its epicentre at sea but no tsunami warning was given since the magnitude was less than 6.1.
The tremor was felt in several parts of the country but with greater intensity in Setubal and Lisbon.

‘Although this earthquake can be considered as moderate, one shouldn’t worry too much as the southern part of the country has always been seismic active’, says Joao Duarte, seismologist at IPMA, the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere. But it definitely serves as a wake-up call to invest in risk reduction.

It has to do with two tectonic plates pushing against each other. The African plate moves northwest and lifts the Eurasian plate, which is moving to the east –  along the so-called Azores-Gibraltar fracture.
The earthquake has been classified as the biggest felt in Lisbon since 1969, which had a force of 7.9 and its epicentre 250 km away from Lisbon. That time 13 people died.  

The by far biggest terramoto was in 1755, with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale. It developed apocalyptic proportions and completely whipped out the lower part of Lisbon. In memory of that country’s main natural disaster, an Earthquake Museum (Museu do Terramoto) was recently opened in Belem.  

The mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, declared that ‘the City Council  has been ‘seismically’ assessing more than 1500 municipal buildings over the last two years and that only 10% of the buildings need anti-seismic reinforcement.’

However, almost 70% of Lisbon’s buildings were built before the seismic protection law in 1983, making the capital the second city with the highest seismic risk after Istanbul.

The weekly newspaper Expresso published, that 195,000 Lisbon residents live in homes that were not built to earthquake standards.
Mafra, says the newspaper, is the only municipality on the mainland that has a special ‘escape plan’ for the population in case of such a natural disaster.’

One can only hope not to be surprised by bigger earthquakes than the one that woke many of us up on that early morning of August 26.

Enjoy your week          Approveite a semana      (pic Público/Sapo)


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Forests

There are three European forests which emit more polluting gases than they absorb. One of them is Portuguese.

Carbon (CO2) absorption is one of the most essential functions of a forest. But in the last 20 years, three large areas of European forest have failed this important role and are effectively emitting more gases than absorbing. The Central region of Portugal is one of these areas with a negative balance. The other two are Les Landes in France and the Harz in Germany.

The Carbon Forest Project of the Journalism Fund Europe (www.journalismfund.eu) explored the three regions and analyzed how the detrimental forestry practices – like monocultures – imposed by forestry lobbies and systemic governmental failure, effectively have transformed these big forests into greenhouse gas emitters. Their common feature? All are vast areas of monoculture.

Research shows that such monoculture plantations lack the resilience needed to withstand climate change impacts, whether storms, fires or diseases. This vulnerability has led to substantial greenhouse gas emissions from these forests. Those harmful practices, however, are still frequently touted as highly lucrative and accompanied by misleading arguments about sustainability.

‘The native forest of our territory was essentially populated by oaks.’ Biologist Francisco Moreira, from the Higher Institute of Agronomy, explains why this has changed. ‘Much of the Portuguese forest today are monocultures of pine and eucalyptus because of the production of wood and woody products. However, one of the characteristics of Mediterranean oak forests is that they are better adapted to wildfires.

The Portuguese eucalyptus (gum tree) is in area one of the largest in the world. As the country is – with Brazil and China – one of the biggest producers of paper in the world pulp, the economic importance of the sector is undeniable. In 2022, 9% of the total exports came from the forestry sector, which is responsible for more than 100,000 jobs.

Consensus on the management and expansion of eucalyptus has long been at the centre of public debate. Gum trees are fast growing with a cutting cycle of 10 to 12 years, have valuable timber and are used for pulpwood or aromatic oils. In some countries, they have been removed because of the danger of wildfires due to their high flammability.

Looking at the data of the last two decades, the Portuguese forest has been a carbon sink for most years. The negative balance is created by the overwhelming increase in emissions in the years of major fires such as in 2003, 2005, 2013, 2016 and 2017 – the biggest one so far – and is especially visible in the central region of the country.

In 2018, American experts studied the most destructive and deadliest forest fire in the country’s history – claiming the lives of at least 67 people and destroying 20,000 hectares of forest – that had hit the central region of the country (Pedrógão) the year before. Behind the human tragedy, their report says, was the lack of forest management whereby the authors estimated that 80% of the Portuguese forest is not being managed properly.

Although the Portuguese forest is almost entirely (97%) in private hands, for many owners it remains a bad business. The immediate consequence of this disinterest is abandonment. Moreover, the lack of long-term prospects leads many owners to invest in fast-growing species that make a quick profit. This is the case with eucalyptus.


Enjoy your week          Approveite a semana      (pic Público/Sapo)


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Protest

‘Life is not all about making money’

Tourism accounts for 10% of the global GDP. The World Tourist Organisation (UNWTO) estimates the number of tourists at 1.5 billion this year. Sooner or later every popular tourist attraction will be confronted with protests from local residents.

After anti-tourism protests in Venice, on the Spanish island of Majorca and in Athens, the trendy capital of Greece, locals in Sintra – a World Heritage area on the Portuguese west coast – are calling for solutions to the annual rush of summer visitors, who make everyday life in the picturesque region a misery.

The association of residents QSintra, has launched an initiative this year to show how locals feel. Windows, balconies, cafes and restaurants are adorned with catchy posters, challenging the council to finally do something.

Just as Porto and Lisbon are starting to limit ‘tuk-tuks’ and hop on – hop off buses in their historic centre, Sintra too is calling for action.

Although the association points out that tourism is important, it should not downgrade the landscape, depopulate the area and jeopardize the daily lives of the inhabitants. ‘There are just too many visitors, and too many cars and buses winding their way along the narrow roads.

More than being against, we want to point out solutions’, declares Magdalena Martins, the president of QSintra. Sintra needs a lot of tourism but if we‘re not careful the chicken with the golden egg is being killed.’

The number of inhabitants in the historic centre of Sintra has been steadily decreasing from 3706 in 1991 to 2615 in 2021, whereas the amount of tourists – according to the number of visits at the Tourist Office – has increased to over half a million, while Parks de Sintra last year sold more than 3 million tickets to the various monuments in the area.

Martinho Pimentel, a resident who has lived in town for 24 years, has been noticing the increase in an uncontrolled way. ‘Tourism has had a brutal growth and is not minimally organized to live with residents’, he denounces looking at the many cars passing through his street. ‘Last week my front door was blocked because a car was parked there, I only managed to get into the house four hours later.’

He also notes that the vibration and air pollution caused by the vehicles are such that he is afraid they will cause damage, not only to people but also to historic buildings. ‘Tourism itself is not the problem but quality has fallen because of the uncontrollable increase in the number of tourists’, he sighs.

Enjoy the week            Aproveite a semana               (pic Público/Sapo)








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Postcolonization-2

‘Repair is recognizing what history has denied us’

Portugal needs ‘to pay the cost’ of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president Marcelo da Sousa declared at a recent dinner with foreign journalists. ‘The country takes full responsibility for the wrongs of the past and that those crimes – including colonial massacres – had costs.’

‘Are there goods that were looted and not returned? Let’s see how we can repair this. Acknowledging the past and taking responsibility for it is more important than apologizing. Apologizing is the easy part, you turn your back and the job is done.’ 

The president’s remarks came after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk added his voice to the African and Caribbean countries calling for reparations to be made over slavery and colonization at the UN Forum on people of African descent in April.

The head of State further defended that Portugal has the ‘obligation’ to ‘lead the ‘reparation process’ to the countries that were colonized. He noted that this process does not have to go through ‘paying compensation.’ Reparations could be made by cancelling the debts of former colonies or introducing credit lines, financial packages or special cooperation programmes.

Portugal’s new centre-right government severely disapproved the president’s suggestion of slavery reparations, declaring that ‘ there was and is no process or programme’ for paying reparations for the Portuguese colonial past. The government’s line is and will be: deepening mutual relations, respect for historical truth and intense and close cooperation, based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples.’

The president’s comments elicited above all strong criticism from rightwing and far-right parties in Parliament. Paulo Núncio, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDS) and junior partner in the Democratic Alliance government, said ‘his party does not need to revisit colonial legacies and reparation duties.’ André Ventura, the leader of the far-right Chega party went even further by calling the president’s behaviour ‘a betrayal of the Portuguese people.’

The minister of Racial Equality of Brazil Anielle Franco on the other hand warmly welcomed the forceful statement of the Portuguese president and called for concrete actions and payment of reparations for past mistakes.

Her declaration was fully supported by the Marielle Franco Institute and the Centre for Labor Relations and Inequalities Studies. ‘The Portuguese expansion is inseparable from slavery. The absolute absence of positioning on the part of Portugal, and the lack of concrete measures of reparation to the Brazilian black population for the profound damage caused by enslavement and transatlantic trafficking are faults that need to be remedied.’ 

Meanwhile, the Angolan historian Alberto Pinto considers it ’impossible and even absurd’ to make a calculation today of the tragic costs of history. ‘It is better to teach the history of Africa in schools. Knowledge about the history of slavery is important. Returning assets, asking for forgiveness or paying debts are things common people do not think about, that only has to do with certain political interests.’

Epsy Campbell Barr, former Costa Rica vice-president and chairwoman of the UN Forum for people of African descent, agrees that it should be mandatory to teach the history of slavery in schools, but disagrees with regard to repairs. ‘Repair is recognizing what history has denied us.’ 

Enjoy your week          Aproveite a semana      (pic Público/Sapo)

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Postcolonial-1

‘Portugal has a romanticized interpretation of its past.’

Portugal was the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade, kidnapping and forcibly transporting about 6 million African men, women and children across the Atlantic between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Although it abolished slavery to the Portuguese mainland in 1761, the trade to Brazil continued and slavery was not completely eliminated across all territories Portugal controlled until 1869.

Portugal’s colonial era lasted more than five centuries, with Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and some territories in Asia (Goa, Macau) subject to Portuguese rule.

Decolonization of the African countries and the end of the empire in Africa happened months after Portugal’s ‘Carnation Revolution’ in April 1974, toppling the longest fascist dictatorship in Europe.

“People find it hard to admit that the racism fostered by slavery and colonialism still exists, let alone acknowledge how thoroughly it has penetrated in the Portuguese society,” says Evalina Dias, project manager at Djass – Portugal’s Association of African Descendants. “The problem here is the systemic and structural racism, that frustrates black people every day when it comes to employment, health, education and housing.”

With regard to its history there are similarities between Portugal and Netherlands. “I think the way the official memory in Portugal operates is similar to the way memory around ‘the Golden Age’ exists in the Netherlands”, explains Paul Cardullo, curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in the British newspaper the Guardian.
“In Portugal it is ‘the Age of Discoveries’ that provokes the same longstanding and fierce desire to protect it – without acknowledging the pain that comes along with that for a lot of people. Why? Because it’s caught up in the national identity.”

“Unfortunately, kids still learn at school that Portugal was an excellent colonizer, that the country ‘discovered’ other countries and that Portuguese people are so unique that they mixed with different cultures as if no violations occurred”, says Paula Cardoso, founder of the Afrolink online platform for black professionals in Portugal.  

Plantacão  (Plantation), the contemporary piece of art and memorial to the victims of slavery – conceived by the Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Hendi in 2017 – should long have appeared but lack of political will and arguments over where it should be located have dogged the project’s progress for more than seven years.
“Portugal has a romanticized interpretation of its past”, Kia Hendi believes.

Enjoy your week                   Aproveite a sua semana      (pic Público/Lusa)








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Leadership


There are numerous terms to describe the wide array of far-right parties and their leaders. They are in one way or the other extreme right, radical right, populist, nativist, ultranationalist, authoritarian, neofascist, illiberal, ‘anti-woke’, anti-Islam, anti-immigration and Euro- and climate-sceptic.

The PopuList – an innovative project involving more than 100 political scientists from over 30 countries classifying Europe’s political parties and their ideologies – shows the steady increase of populist far-right parties in Europe from 1989 until 2022.

Chega (which means Enough) – at present the third-biggest force in Portuguese politics and led by André Ventura – is far-right and populist, with a strong focus on immigration and Islam.

Just like the PVV (Freedom Party) of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in France and Victor Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary, who all believe that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of their own ‘native group.’

The picture is familiar. Mainstream parties are struggling with upcoming nativist movements that successfully exploit discontent with stagnating living standards. In Portugal, the sense of economic resentment has been deepened by an acute housing crisis, in part triggered by an influx of expats, who are lured through attractive tax concessions. Multiple corruption scandals have also played in Ventura’s hands.

Although the majority (87%) of the Portuguese want a democracy, nearly half (47%) are willing to support a government of a strong leader who does not have to worry about elections, according to ‘50 years of Democracy in Portugal’, a study recently carried out by the Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP) of the University of Lisbon.

’We can conclude that today the preference for democracy coexists with preferences for autocratic forms of government’, declared Conceição Pequito, one of the coordinators of the study. A more autocratic form of government ‘presupposes a weakening of the legislative and judicial power and poses a threat to the protection of political rights and civil liberties in a democratic liberal state.’

Of the respondents who prefer a Government with a strong leader, one-third are positioned on the extreme right and over 50% are neither interested in politics nor sympathize with a particular party.
Nowadays, the online presence of certain leaders is such that – in the eyes of voters – ‘they tend to be considered more important than parties.’

A situation that not only takes place in Portugal, and is exacerbated in the political communication made on social media.

Have a great weekend          Bom fim de semana                (Pic Sapo)




































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Tapestry

A beacon of hope for the preservation of coral reefs

An amazing piece of tapestry by Algarve textile artist Vanessa Barragão has been donated by the Portuguese government to the United Nations, which will display it permanently on the wall of the Delegates Lounge at its headquarters in New York.

The four-by-two meters artwork, entitled Coral Vivo (Living Coral), aims to be a beacon of hope for the preservation of corals. It took two months to create, using only recycled materials such as wool and lyocell.

Despite her 31 years of age, Vanessa Barragão has already exhibited her art around the world, from the USA to Shanghai and from Australia to Japan. She admitted that being invited by the government to donate this piece to the UN stands out as one of her most impressive achievements.

It’s no surprise that the oceans – and corals specifically – are such a strong inspiration for her. She was born in Albufeira, where she spent her childhood at the beaches of the Algarve and used to travel with her parents to coral reefs in the Caribes. When she turned 18, she left home to study Fashion Design at the University of Lisbon. During that time she became more conscious about consumption and sustainability.

After her study she moved up north, where she worked as a textile designer at an artisanal carpet factory in Póvoa de Varzim. It was during this period that she became aware of the amount of waste generated by mass production and the extreme pollution in the textile industry.

In 2020 she decided to move back to the Algarve where she opened her own studio and combined her ecological awareness with techniques based on ancestral textile practices like crochet, weaving, embroidery and macrame. All the materials used come from waste and leftovers from Portuguese factories.

‘Just as the delicate yet resisting threads in this tapestry, all life on the planet is intermeshed in an intricate and co-dependent network. Coral reefs are among the most stunning habitats with the greatest biodiversity on our planet but are extremely threatened,’ Secretary-General António Guterres stated, when the tapestry was officially donated to the UN on the 18th of March in New York.   

Coral reefs are not only stunning, they also matter. Although covering less than 1% of the ocean about 25% of all marine species are found around them. Due to the global heating crisis, ocean record temperatures have caused corals to bleach in the three tropical basins of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean.  

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – the planet’s biggest coral reef covering an area a little larger than the size of Italy – is experiencing its most widespread bleaching on record. ‘It is a graveyard out there’ according to professor Terry Hughes, a renowned veteran coral scientist.  

Enjoy your week          Aproveite a sua semana                (pic Ptres/Sapo)













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Airfield

‘We leave peace behind and face noise with fear’

After 50 years of delay, the Government has finally decided on the location of Lisbon’s new airport and considered the former Alcochete Shooting Ground (Campo the Tiro Alcochete) the best place to build the new Aeroporto Luis de Camões. An infrastructure which – according to the local tabloids – had ‘almost transformed into a national trauma.’

The decision came after an extensive study made by the Independent Technical Commission (CTI), that evaluated numerous sites, including Santarem, Montijo, Vendas Novas, Pegões, Rio Frio and Beja, amongst others.

Alcochete, in the Setúbal district, proved to be the best option as it is located on public land – some 3400 hectares – and relatively close (45 km) to the capital. The first runway will be constructed by 2030 and the airport should be concluded in ten years.

In the meantime, the capacity of Lisbon’s overcrowded Aeroporto Humberto Delgado will be increased to 45 departures and arrivals per hour by investing around 300 million euros in terminals and accessibility, to ensure the current airport can cope with the increasing number of passengers until the new Luis de Camões airport is built. 

At the same time, the government decided to build a third bridge for trains and cars. This Third Tagus Crossing – Terceira Travessa do Tejo (TTT ) – which connects Chelas (Lisbon) with Barreiro (Setúbal), will ease traffic from the two other Lisbon bridges (25 de Abril and Vasco da Gama) and shorten trips to or from the southern Algarve province.

Finally, a high-speed railway connection between Lisbon and Madrid – a requisite of the Iberian / Moroccan deal to organize the 2030 Football World Cup – will have to be linked to the new airport. All this has very strict timelines, not least the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed rail, which has to be completed in time six years from now.

The objective is to construct an airport with a capacity to accommodate up to 100 million passengers per year after 2050, with ample space for two further runways. The costs of the airport don’t include the third bridge over the Tejo and the railway links. These are to be paid separately and supervised by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing.

The investment for the construction of the new airport has been calculated at over 6,1 billion euros, involving 2 runways to start with, the first to be concluded in 2030 (costs at least 3.3 billion) and the second (costs 2.8 billion) to be ready by 2031.

In Santo Estêvão (St Stephen) – a village of approximately 2100 inhabitants and closest to the future airport – the opinions are divided. There are those who expect ‘more employment and improvement of the infrastructure’, but also those who ‘fear the noise and increase in the cost of living.’   


Have a great week         Tenha uma ótima semana      (pic Público/Sapo)

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