At 10 am, more than 200 teachers and school staff had posted information on the "Strike by the Minute" platform about the impact of the national strike of single-subject teachers called by Fenprof, S.TO.P., the National Union of Teachers Licensed by Polytechnics and Universities (SPLIU) and the Union of Teachers, Senior Technicians, Technical and Operational Assistants (SINAPE).

The data revealed that at least 138 schools were closed or restricted in 62 municipalities, the vast majority on the coast, due to protests for better working conditions for single-subject teachers, who are demanding equal conditions with colleagues at other levels of education.

Information depicting the impact of the strike is being posted on the online observatory “Strike by the Minute” of metaPROF, a platform created by teachers.

The platform was constantly updated throughout the morning. It started the day with only 8 entries, but about an hour later, there were already more than 200, and by around 10:30 am, there were more than 300.

Most of the closed schools are on the coast, especially in the Lisbon region, such as the Santa Iria da Azoia Basic School, in Loures, or the Pedro Eanes Lobato school, in Seixal, but there are also reports of closed schools further north, such as the Paião school, in the Figueira da Foz area.

Preschool and 1st cycle teachers are demanding the valorisation of single-teacher instruction and a reduction in working hours to 22 weekly teaching periods, as is the case in other cycles of education.

The reduction in teaching hours due to age, under the same conditions as teachers from other recruitment groups; the reduction in teaching hours due to job performance; and the assignment of caregiving responsibilities to other education professionals are other demands on these teachers.

This group of teachers also asks that the retirement age be lowered to 60.

The vast majority of teachers said they were exhausted, partly due to excessive workloads, according to research conducted by the Movement of Teachers in Single-Teacher Systems (MPM) and the Metaprof platform, which gathered 7,072 responses from teachers in public schools and national school clusters in preschool and primary education.

The research, conducted between February and March of this year, painted a worrying picture: 86% of participants considered single-teacher teaching a profession that leads to rapid burnout, and 72% complained about the lack of human resources in schools.