Portugal faces teacher shortage, leaving thousands without educators

Lisbon: Portugal’s National Teachers’ Federation (Fenprof) says that over 800 teachers are missing from Portuguese schools at the start of the academic year.

Portugal is suffering from a shortage of educators, with the National Teachers’ Federation (Fenprof) estimating that around 200,000 pupils will not have a teacher for at least one subject as the school year starts.

“This is a much more serious situation than last year,” Mário Nogueira of Fenprof told Euronews.

“Last year, at this time (the number of available teachers) would have been at around 100,000, which was already very serious and which has naturally been getting worse, because 3,521 teachers retired last year and maybe 700 to 800 came into the system.”

“In the last six years, more than 14,500 teachers out of 120,000 or 130,000, that is, more than 10% of properly qualified young teachers, have left the profession,” he said.

Low salaries, heavy workloads and placements far from home in schools where it is difficult to find teachers have led thousands in Portugal to leave the profession.

Nogueira explained that first-time teachers are also under heavy demands, with suffocating working hours and a high number of students per class.

Many would-be teachers in Portugal are giving up on the profession before practicing it, leading to a lack of young teachers.

In 2021, in mainland Portugal, around half of all teachers were over 50, while only 2% were under 30.

By 2030, around 50,000 teachers are expected to leave the education system, without enough graduates to replace them.

Members of Fenprof say that the government’s plan to keep the profession alive is flawed as it relies too heavily on incentivising people to stay in teaching when they are near retirement age rather than encouraging new graduates.

The Portuguese government is exploring the possibility of extending the retirement age for teachers until 70 and encouraging 200 teachers who have recently retired back into the profession.

It also aims to attract 500 new teachers through recent master’s or doctoral graduates. According to Nogueira, re-recruiting 200 teachers is unlikely to adequately address the shortage, which is much larger.

On the eve of the return to school, Minister of Education Fernando Alexandre sent a letter to teachers, acknowledging the devaluation of the profession “over the last few decades” and promising a revision of the Teaching Career Statute.

Negotiations with teaching unions will start on 21 October, and the process is expected to be completed within a year.

The problem of teacher shortages is not unique to Portugal. Another 23 EU member states are struggling with the same problem, which has an impact on pupils’ learning and hinders the goal of providing quality education.

According to the European Commission’s “Education and Training Monitor 2023” report, Sweden, Germany and Italy are the countries most affected by the shortage of teaching staff.