A Lisbon primary school is taking it on itself to close tomorrow due to problems caused by persistent leaks that are compromising the electricity system.
Aljezur International School does not suffer from leaks; it does not have water leaking into electrical power points. It also does not have pupils housed in temporary installations (‘monoblocs’/ containers), which the Escola Básica Rainha Santa Isabel’s pupils have been forced to learn out of for the last five years.
In short, the fact that the ministry allows a school like Escola Básica Rainha Santa Isabel, in Campo Ourique, to function at all highlights the dichotomy at play: Aljezur International School began its life in temporary installations – but it was only allowed a temporary licence to function in those days (2010), and the containers had to be rented from a specific firm – which charged over €60,000 for initial installation and then another €3,000-plus rent per month. Since then, the school has been told that containers are no longer deemed suitable for educational purposes, yet Escola Básica Rainha Santa Isabel has been using them for five years; a number of schools in the Algarve are also using them – including the secondary Piedade dos Matos school in Aljezur town.
Thus, while Aljezur International School anxiously awaits the decision of a judge on whether it can reopen next week, Escola Básica Rainha Santa Isabel has decided it simply won’t take the treatment it is receiving from authorities any longer.
The parents association and local parish council are accusing the municipality of negligence.
Mafalda Ambrósio of the parents’ association tells SIC: “What is concerning us, really, is all the negligence that has happened – because this could all have been avoided if there had been correct maintenance of the monoblocs. And then there has been the shifting of responsibilities, where it is either the responsibility of the city council or the parish council, and no one ever really takes responsibility for having 160 children in a school, who have to be safe and who have to have the conditions for a healthy and normal school year.”
SIC Notícias gives the background to this story: the school has been in temporary monoblocs since 2021 and the roughly 160 pupils should have been starting this school year (back in September) in the original building, in Rua de Santa Quitéria, where building work began five years ago. But the building work is still incomplete. As a result, wear and tear on the monoblocs is starting to show. The leaks, for example, started in February this year (when the country experienced a very wet winter). The worst affected areas were those used by the kindergarten classes.
Fast-forward nine months, and the predicament is every bit as bad, if not worse. “On Friday last week persistent rain caused the fire alarms to go off while children were eating lunch in the refectory. As it wasn’t possible to disconnect the alarms without disconnecting the electricity at the mains, parents were asked to come and pick up their children”, reports SIC.
Mafalda Ambrósio explains that as much as parents understand, firefighters have ‘viewed the situation’ and advised that ‘for questions of safety’, the school should not reopen until repair work required has been undertaken.
As she explained, there are a number of issues that need fixing – drainage pipes particularly need to be increased in diameter.
Parents do not appear to be holding out hope that work will be done quickly – and there is zero information on when the original building will be ready to receive children again. Mafalda Ambrósio said that the municipal company renovating the building “could not be certain we will move by Easter (2026)”.
All this underscores the bafflement of parents, teachers and pupils in Aljezur, where the premises that have housed the school since 2013 are warm, dry and comfortable – and children have been learning happily and taking recognised Cambridge Board exams before going on to colleges/ universities/ the wider world.
With luck, the two school communities – many kilometres apart – will both have ‘better news’ in the coming days.
Source: SIC Notícias
