The PS wants the law to recognize the figure of the student company and the status of the student entrepreneur, which guarantees these students can fulfill the functions they assume in these companies with “rights, availability, protection and responsibility”.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the general secretary of Socialist Youth (JS) and PS deputy, Sofia Pereira, explained the general lines of this bill with which the party advanced in parliament to recognize these companies, as is already happening, for example, in France, since “until now they do not have any type of legal framework”.
“We want these members to have access, on the one hand, to a mix of student worker and association leader status.to ensure that they can fulfill the functions of these junior companies with rights, with availability, with protection, and also with responsibility”, he explained.
Like this, the PS proposes that, in addition to the figure of the student company, the status of the student entrepreneur be established, emphasizing the importance of the work of these companies.
“They are really very important because, on the one hand, they encourage young people to materialize the needs and aspirations they have, on the other hand, they also connect academic theory to the real world and promote this approach of young people to the job market”, he pointed out.
These companies, according to Sofia Pereira, “are not for profit but for social purposes” and the objective of the PS is to ensure “that this mechanism is created to give them more dignity, more opportunities” and “a set of benefits and added value to be able to perform these functions well”.
The JS leader explained that students covered by this new statute that the PS wants to create would now have justification for absences when representing these companies, would have the possibility of scheduling exams in special seasons and would also have access to offices in the institutions to be able to work and develop their projects.
“In addition to the formal recognition of this activity, greater support for young innovation, because at the end of the day they are taking a big step in creating and transforming ideas into projects with social impact, and without being penalized for it, because until now they had no protection and now they have it”, he explained.
Asked about the expectation of seeing this project approved with the current parliamentary geometry, Sofia Pereira admitted that she had “little hope that the parties that support the Government will be consistent when they talk about young people”, because they “have not been so at all since the beginning of the legislature”.
“It may be that this time they can be aligned with the principles that guide the need for young people to have more rights and more conditions to perform functions such as these”, he said.