The representative of the Portuguese government was in Famalicão on Monday 23rd September for the inauguration of the refurbished Ribeirão Primary School.

The expansion and requalification work, carried out by the local authority, was the result of an investment of over eight million euros - with around 4.3 million euros co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, through the North 2020/Portugal 2020 Regional Operational Programme. These interventions will benefit the 750 or so pupils, from the 5th to the 9th year of schooling, who are part of this school.

For the mayor, Mário Passos, ‘the renovation of a school is always a source of great happiness for the whole community and there's nothing like the smiles we saw today on the faces of the children and young people who accompanied us’.

The mayor of Famalicão also highlighted the investment of more than 47 million euros made by the municipality in order to guarantee the growing quality of education in Vila Nova de Famalicão in this new school year. It's worth remembering that of this total amount, 23 million will be channelled into various interventions to modernise the municipality's school park. 

‘These facilities have brought more quality to our teaching and more comfort,’ noted the director of the Ribeirão School Group, Elsa Carneiro. Only with these facilities ‘can we develop what is required of us in today's school’. 

Currently, the Ribeirão Primary School has a renovated multi-purpose building, comprising a multipurpose area, study room, library, canteen, bar and kitchen, a new building with classrooms, laboratories, teachers' room, reprographics, circulation areas, an auditorium for 140 people, a covered playground and an outdoor auditorium, as well as a modernised area for teachers, management and administrative services. The municipality will now move on to the third phase of the work and begin refurbishing the sports pavilion and the entrance to the educational institution.