The episode “Sem Professor” (Without Teacher), from RTP’s news program “Linha da Frente”, depicts how students, parents, and schools in Portugal are currently experiencing the phenomenon of teacher shortages. This serious situation is due to the retirement of about 40% of the national teaching staff over this decade and is expected to worsen progressively each year until 2030.

These predictions were made by a research study from Nova SBE Economics of Education Knowledge Center, which calculated teacher recruitment needs for each school year between 2021 and 2030. This study was commissioned by the 2019-2022 government and is being used by the current one to determine which schools require priority measures for the next school year.

Luís Catela Nunes, our Center’s Scientific Director and coordinator of the aforementioned study, was interviewed for this episode. He emphasized that over the past 10 years there has been a significant decrease in the number of students enrolling in courses that qualify for teaching, which results in an insufficient number of new teachers to compensate for the large number of retirements. The researcher shared that, in the 3rd cycle and secondary education, especially in areas related to sciences, mathematics, and technologies, the number of students in master’s programs that lead to teaching is overwhelmingly lower than the number of teachers that will be needed.

In 2024, 5000 teachers are expected to retire, and only 1000 new ones are expected to replace them.

This problem, which caused more than 234.000 students to start this school year without a teacher for at least one subject, mainly affects schools in Greater Lisbon, Baixo Alentejo, and the Algarve.

The lack of attractiveness of the teaching profession is an international phenomenon, reported in the latest global report on teachers by UNESCO.

Check out our study on teacher demand and supply from 2021 to 2030 here.

Watch the full RTP’s program here.