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Prosecutor's Office argues that the update parameter should be the minimum annual value per student for the initial years of urban elementary education

 

The Attorney General's Office (PGR) proposed a Direct Unconstitutionality Action with a request for a Precautionary Measure to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) asking the Court to declare the partial unconstitutionality, without reducing the text, of article 5, sole paragraph, of the Law 11,738 of 2008, which established the national professional salary floor for teachers in the public basic education network. With this, the PGR wants to ensure that the salary floor for the category is updated.

 

The request, signed last Thursday (23/11) by the interim attorney general Elizeta Maria de Paiva Ramos, requests the declaration of partial unconstitutionality to rule out an interpretation of the law that revokes the criteria for updating the national salary floor for public teachers of basic education.

 

This is because article 5 of Law 11,738/2008 refers to Law 11,494, of June 20, 2007, which was revoked in 2020 with the publication of Law 14,113, which regulated the new Fundeb (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Education Professionals).

 

 

Thus, article 5 of Law 11,738 started to refer to a law that is no longer in force to define the criteria for updating the minimum salary for teachers. As a result, some municipalities began to argue that there was no legal parameter for correcting the salary minimum for the category. Some are even suing in court for the nullity of ordinances from the Ministry of Education that set the salary floor for the years 2022 and 2023.

 

The PGR, then, requests that the Supreme Court declare the partial unconstitutionality of article 5, sole paragraph, of Law 11,738 of 2008. Furthermore, it requests that the understanding be established that the parameter for updating the salary floor of basic education teachers in public network is “the minimum annual value per student for the initial years of urban primary education, defined nationally, under the terms of the law that regulates Fundeb, that is, Law 14,113/2020”.

 

In Initial Petition AJCONST/PGR No. 1240975/2023, the Attorney General's Office argues that the request is “in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the fundamental right to education and the principles of valuing education professionals and the minimum salary for the category”.

 

According to the document, “the establishment of a mechanism for updating the salary floor is intrinsically related to its very existence, as its prediction would be innocuous if the maintenance of the purchasing power of education professionals was not guaranteed”.