Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

I am very pleased to be here today in this ceremony for the award of the 2008 Montepio School Prize.

I want my presence to be a sort of public recognition for the initiative taken by Montepio Geral.

To endow a prize, with innovating characteristics, to distinguish schools for their work and their competence is a contribution provided for those who have made it their profession to bring quality to learning, for those who want to build a better Portugal.

The Board of Montepio Geral considered this as one of the best means to materialize the principle of social responsibility which pertains to all corporations.

Thank you then, for the intuit of the future which has made possible this initiative and for the example it may constitute to other corporations.

I am certain that many more will follow Montepio’s example.

We are all well aware of the importance of schooling in the path we have to follow.

I am fully conversant with the criteria followed to select and distinguish the prize winning schools. The prize for the efforts undertaken by the schools, by their students, by their teachers and by the communities in which they are inserted, represents after all a strong stimulus to the progress we wish for.

Values chosen for this year were the fight against school abandonment, the incentive to good working and studying practices, the promotion of entrepreneurship, environmental citizenship or of scientific culture.

It is the recognition of the merit and of the effort to do better, even when the starting point is not necessarily one of the highest.

And this is very important, since the lower we are placed the higher we have to climb.

This prize gains even better sense when we become aware that the schools are located in regions which are not economically or socially privileged.

These are communities that fight against difficult situations and which refuse to consider that backwardness is fatal, investing on the day to day improvement in the training of new generations.

The appeal that my husband has so frequently made to the Portuguese not to become resigned in the face of difficulties and adversity, is finding an answer in these schools, in these students, in these teachers, in these communities that do not give up the search for new objectives and for new solutions.

I am finding, all over our Country, examples of this concern in wishing to go further, in achieving a better performance.

This is the rationale for the existence of schools. This is how we can maintain the definite hope that better days will arrive.

I believe that we will succeed in this objective, since we cannot accept being condemned to stagnation and hopelessness.

Your example gives me the right to believe.

Maria Cavaco Silva