Education Ministry reports surge in new public school placement requests
The Education Minister said over a hundred new student placement requests were filed, and officials are working to assign all applicants while addressing teacher shortages.
Following parental reports of insufficient public school vacancies, the Education Ministry disclosed that more than one hundred additional student placement requests were submitted recently. The minister confirmed that all applicants are being placed and that new cases appear each day. He explained that the ministry has been monitoring placement needs continuously since the enrollment period closed.
In the Lisbon region, over 1,300 students have already been assigned to schools this week. The minister also addressed the teacher shortage, stating that roughly a thousand full-time teaching slots remain unfilled and that a new mechanism will allow daily replacement of absent teachers. He acknowledged a mismatch between teachers' location preferences and schools' needs, especially in Lisbon and the Algarve.
