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Artur Mesquita Guimarães, father of two students who did not participate in the Citizenship and Development course for two years, sent a letter to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa asking for the resignation of João Costa, Secretary of State for Education.
According to the father of the minors, João Costa accused in a report broadcast by TVI “the parents of two Famalicão students of using their children in an ideological campaign.” Mesquita Guimarães does not accept the accusation and argues that the Secretary of State cannot remain in office.
“The statement is serious, it is very serious and expresses total lack of respect for my family, an unwise judgment on me and my wife in an unsubstantiated, distorted and publicly pronounced statement that reveals the lack of ethical sense, which is necessary to any figure of State ”, can be read in the letter sent to the President of the Republic.
Contact by JN, the Secretary of State for Education does not comment.
The father of six children evoked conscientious objection to prevent the two youngest children from attending the Citizenship discipline in the last two years.
The 12 and 14-year-old students did not attend these classes and the family did not accept any of the proposals presented by the school for the recovery of discipline. Among the alternatives, there was the elaboration of written works on Citizenship issues that allowed students to be evaluated, assigning a grade to the discipline. Without classification and with unexcused absences, students either returned to attend discipline or submitted written assignments or were retained in the year they were attending.
Artur Mesquita Guimarães has advanced, in the Administrative and Fiscal Court of Braga, with a judicial process against the Camilo Castelo Branco School Group, in Vila Nova de Famalicão and against the Ministry of Education.
This case led to the disclosure of a petition “in defense of educational freedoms” signed by a hundred people, namely, Cardinal D. Manuel Clemente, Patriarch of Lisbon, and D. António Moiteiro, Bishop of Aveiro, the former President Cavaco Silva, former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
Then came the manifesto “Citizenship and development: citizenship is not an option” that affirms that ethics cannot be the object of conscientious objection and criticizes those who defend that discipline is optional.
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