Education professionals will hold a new national demonstration in Lisbon for public schools on 25 February, S.TO.P. leader André Pestana announced on Friday.

Speaking to journalists before entering the second meeting of the fifth round of negotiations with the Government, the leader of the All Education Professionals Union revealed that the strike committees and school union forces that met on Thursday had decided to hold a "new march for the public school".

The protest, scheduled for 25 February, will begin at the Palace of Justice and end in front of the Assembly of the Republic, where a "burial of the quality public school" will take place.

André Pestana explained that at the Palace of Justice "they will ask for justice for those who work in public schools" and then the demonstrators will pass by the official residence of the Prime Minister, to "symbolically pressure" António Costa, ending the protest in front of the Assembly of the Republic.

The march, he said, is a response to the "continued intransigence of the Ministry of Education to the main demands of teachers and non-teaching staff and the successive attacks on the freedom and right to strike".

André Pestana also regretted the statements made on Thursday on TVI by the Prime Minister, who said there was no money to recover the frozen service time of teachers, which is one of the main reasons for the protests and strikes that began in December last year.

André Pestana recalled that "the Portuguese know that millions have been spent" to solve corruption problems, for 'offshores' or for millionaire compensations.

"It's more than 22 million euros to plug the holes of the bankers, it's billions of euros for ruinous public-private partnerships, it's 13 billion euros that are lost every year in tax evasion," enumerated the Stop leader, arguing that instead of the money being "put into corruption and 'offshores', it should be channelled into public services".

About today's meeting regarding a new model for selecting and placing teachers, André Pestana once again said that with the "document that is on the table there are no conditions".

The document presented by the Ministry "does not correspond to any of the demands" of the education professionals, said the leader of STOP, accusing the Government of "intransigence, despite saying it is negotiating".

In addition to the recovery of more than six years of frozen service time, STOP is asking for an increase of 120 euros for all professionals to respond to inflation.