The first teacher training institution in Madeira, the “Escola Distrital do Funchal”. The State was thus introducing the new policy of decentralizing student instruction, which was already scarce in the archipelago at that time. It was established on May 10th, 1900, and operated in Rua das Aranhas, under the administration of Dr. Pedro José Lomelino (1864-1930), a physician from Porto Santo who taught along with four other teachers, and beginning teaching activities on October 10th of that year, counting with 37 students. The two-year course provided qualifications for the exercise of Primary School Teaching, which today is known as the 1st cycle of primary education, with the following curriculum: Portuguese, Grammar, Calligraphy, History, Geography, Natural Sciences, Arithmetic and Geometry, Design and Music, Crafts, Moral Rights and Duties and Doctrine. Shortly thereafter, on December 24th, 1901, the first reform takes place, which extinguishes the District Schools in the qualification for Primary Teaching, which is then passed on to “Normal Schools”, in an identical curriculum plan in terms of subjects, but with a longer duration: three years. Interestingly enough, after 19 years, on the same date, May 10th, a new decree was published extinguishing the “Normal Schools” throughout the country (except in the districts of Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra), which then became Superior Primary Schools, with the one in Funchal maintaining the same administration and teaching staff, but with an additional eight teachers. The Superior Primary Schools were extinguished by decree of June 15th, 1926, following a long period without teacher training, which resulted in a new lack of primary teachers in the archipelago, later resuming in 1943.

[MG]

Credits: Madeira Photography Museum - Atelier Vicente's.

ALEXANDER LAMONT HENDERSON | Outdoor group portrait of children and teachers at a school | 1906

8.2 x 8.3 cm. | Simple glass slide | Gelatin-silver print

ALH / 54