"If the Government does not take measures to solve [the problem of ageing in the teaching profession], there will be a tremendous break soon," said Mario Nogueira, speaking at a press conference at the Queen Santa Isabel School, in Coimbra.

Until June this year, more teachers have retired than in the entire year of 2018, and this is starting to be a trend.

After April 25, 1974, with the democratization of education, there was an exponential increase in the number of teachers entering the system who are now close to retirement age.

In this sense, "the number of retirees annually will increase brutally and there will be an enormous difficulty in filling the gaps," he stressed.

Faced with this, the Ministry of Education this year put more teachers in schools on the first day of September, than in 2018.

Mário Nogueira considers that the devaluation of the profession and "the permanent attack on teachers" leaves young people not wanting to become teachers, which could be a problem soon.

As an example of the ageing of the profession, Nogueira pointed to the Queen Santa Isabel School, where the average age of teachers is 54.4 and the number of teachers aged 65 is higher than all those aged up to 40, who are only three (and they are all 39).

At the press conference, Fenprof also responded to the Prime Minister, António Costa, who stated in a recent interview with Expresso newspaper that he would be available to negotiate with teachers, as long as they had a "white flag" in their hand.

"The Prime Minister should already know that teachers do not surrender," said Mario Nogueira.

The teachers are available for negotiation and dialogue, but will not "raise any white flag", listing nine areas for any negotiation with the future government, after the elections on 6 October.

At the forefront of these demands is the full recovery of teachers' time of service that remains to be accounted for, followed by the need for a specific retirement system, the fight against zero contracts, an end to "abuses" in teachers' working hours and a fair competition regime.

During the press conference, Mário Nogueira also called for the mobilization of teachers for a national demonstration in Lisbon on October 5, the day before the elections, on what is World Teacher's Day.