AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS AUGUSTO CABRITA - ESCOLA SECUNDARIA AUGUSTO CABRITA

in Barreiro, Portugal

 

http://aeaugustocabrita.com.pt

 

Escola Secundaria Augusto Cabrita (ESAC) is a regular and vocational school owned by Ministry of Education and it is situated in Barreiro town at opposite side of Lisbon in the left margin of Tagus river. ESAC has annually about 1000 students and 100 teachers and it offers education in scientific, humanities and vocational courses like informatics, management, marketing and design, events and technologic courses in physical education. Barreiro is a town that were developed in the past with industrial development and trains reparation center.

Many workers came to Barreiro in past two centuries and the town were increasing with each time more population. With colonies auto determination in Africa in 1978 many families of Portuguese and native people, came to Portugal without nothing.

Barreiro had got many immigrants from colonies in Africa, they came to Portugal trying a better life and scape to the civil war between different factions that wants to take the power. When Portugal entered to European Union many factories from Barreiro are contributing to produce a lot of pollution and many of them make sense in a big market of Africa so they closed and had generated big unemployment. Last decade we add a big movement of immigrants from east of Europe and Brazil (old Portuguese colony) that movement continues. Our school like our society is a melting pot with students from different countries and cultures. Some of them are trying to do a vocational course to start working or continue studies.

Our school is one in our municipality that accepts students with problems of mobility and some with cognitive problems. The support of this students to develop them skills preparing them to the work market. ESAC School has some experience about national and international project work and it has run some international projects successfully. The students come from a low social family context (often with economic problems due to unemployment) and they are not always motivated to study. They would like to work but often they lack of motivation in learning. They are therefore at risk of social exclusion and go out of education system. The teachers try to discover new strategies to make vocational education attractive for all.  We have contacts with companies where we send them for training in the end of the course.

EXPECTATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

This projects are important to open minds and contact with other cultures, learning to be more tolerant with others, to understand the others are like us and to motivate them.