Lifeguards want to change the law

Public entities linked to the training of lifeguards in the Central region want courses to be held earlier and changes to the law, which are taking a long time to be implemented, to make the activity more attractive to young people.

In addition to the Instituto de Socorros a Náufragos (ISN), which certifies all courses carried out nationwide and is responsible for final exams, the only two public schools in Portugal are located in Nazaré (Leiria district) and Figueira da Foz (Coimbra district) , the latter being the only one owned by a municipality.

In Nazaré, the Professional Training Centre for Fisheries and the Sea (For-Mar), in addition to the skills it already had related to maritime activity, began training lifeguards in 2022, responding to a need identified in the district of Leiria.

Speaking to Lusa, Pedro Figueira, coordinator of lifeguard training, argued that the courses should start earlier and not at the end of the bathing season, but there is a lack of candidates, most of whom are young university students.

“Every week I receive requests for job offers and I see entities, from local authorities to concessionaires, very anxious about needing lifeguards. The big problem is that everyone only thinks about lifeguards when the first rays of sunshine appear”, argued the senior technician at For-Mar.

The Nazaré school intended to run a course during the winter season, but came to the conclusion that trying to prepare for the bathing season “more calmly is an impossible task”, because there are no candidates available.

The candidates are young people between 18 and 30 years old, the vast majority of whom are university students in their 20s. Lifeguarding ends up working as a financial supplement while they study, but, without a professional career or benefits, such as exemption from tuition fees or mechanisms that prevent them from having to give up grants, they end up giving up the role while they are still studying or after they have finished.

Although in the recent past, the lifeguard activity, due to the low prices charged, was not so attractive (leading to public tenders, specifically promoted by municipalities, being deserted) at the moment, according to Pedro Figueira, “it is relatively well paid”.

“It’s the law of supply and demand at work. But most young people work for two or three years while they study, then they get on with their lives and stop working. The career doesn’t exist. Many of them would like to, but they give up,” he noted.

The training courses certified by the ISN, in public or private entities, are all identical — 150 hours long, theoretical and practical modules in a swimming pool, with mandatory classes in the sea (on coastal beaches) or in open water (for reservoirs or river beaches) — although public courses end up having lower prices (200 euros in Nazaré, 220 in Figueira da Foz).

Pedro Figueira stressed that the first module is a historical, legal and civic framework of the activity, even before talking about beaches, first aid or rescues, and that the activity of any lifeguard is directly linked to prevention.

“99% of the lifeguard’s work involves prevention, and people have the idea that it involves pulling people out of the sea. Prevention is the basis of all work. A lifeguard who does good prevention rarely has to go out to retrieve people from the sea,” he stressed.

In 2016, given the lack of lifeguards on its beaches, 30 bathing areas along the same number of kilometres of coastline, the Figueira da Foz local authority created Foz Resgate, the only municipal school in the country.

João Matias, municipal coordinator of Civil Protection, explained to Lusa that although the school's activity began in this coastal municipality in the district of Coimbra, it quickly spread to other areas of the country, with requests from north to south, from Trás-os-Montes to Alto Alentejo, passing through several municipalities in the interior, such as Arouca - where it continues to offer courses - although the structure created is not large enough to cover all areas and the idea is not to massify training.

“People have even come to see us from Matosinhos, it’s because we’re doing something right”, noted João Matias.

Currently, Foz Resgate already has certification for lifeguards operating quad bikes and rescue jet skis, and certification for coordinators is in progress.

According to available data, in five years, between 2020 and 2024, the school trained more than 600 lifeguards, who passed the ISN exams (rates between 70% and 86%), although the number of people enrolled in the two courses they give annually in Figueira da Foz — one during the Easter period, during the day, the other before the bathing season, in an after-work regime — more than doubled the number of approvals.

In 2022, one of the years with the lowest approval rates (69.2%) among candidates subject to the exam, 306 people registered, but only 268 started the course, after the first mandatory physical tests. And of these, 231 reached the final exams, with 145 being approved.

João Matias also defended changes to the law, starting with the existence of a professional career, but expressed reservations about direct integration into the public service, since each lifeguard has to revalidate the certification every three years, and, if they are unable or unwilling to do so, they cannot practice the profession.