The measures are part of the government’s 3-in-a-line programme designed to reconcile professional, personal and family life and ensure greater balance in the state-sector employees’ lives.

Now, state-sector workers with children under 12 have the right to justifiably take time off to accompany their children on their first day at school or back at school for up to three hours.

Conditions have to be ensured, however, for the effective exercise of this right and to safeguard the public interest, avoiding serious disturbance to public services.

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, praised the measure but said there should be a similar system for the private and social sectors to “avoid a division in the labour market in Portugal.