Although its not a countrywide problem, the shortage of teachers continues to worsen in Algarve, Setúbal and Lisbon, with more than 100,000 primary and secondary students without at least one teacher at the beginning of this school year according to the Portuguese teachers federation, Fenprof.
“The lack of teachers is a known problem, but nothing has been done by the Government”, points out Fenprof (the National Federation of Teachers in Portugal).
A survey, based on unfilled timetables, by Davide Martins, Mathematics teacher at the Dr. Carlos Pinto Ferreira Schools Group (Vila do Conde) and contributor to the blog specialised in education “ArLindo” shows the situation may be even worse. At the beginning of this week, there were 1300 timetables awaiting the placement of a teacher. “These hours correspond to 20,046 hours per week. If we consider that, on average, students have three hours a week per subject, it means that there are 6682 classes without a teacher. If each class has an average of 25 students, that's 167,050 lasses not taking place. To summarise, we can say that more than 6000 classes and/or more than 150,000 young people are affected”, says Davide Martins. "And the problem has increased in recent years."
The regions and disciplines most affected remain the same: Lisbon (schools have one third of the open hours), Setúbal and Algarve. As for the recruitment groups with the most failures, by far the Computer Science (more than 300 to be assigned), followed by Geography, Physics and Chemistry, English and Mathematics.
The question is how long it will take to find candidates for positions? Over the last two years, there were students without classes due to lack of a teacher in one or more subjects throughout the whole 1st term, adding to complications caused by two years of pandemic.
It seems contradictory to speak of a “staff shortages” when every year thousands of job candidates fail to get a job. At the moment, there are still around16,000 professionals on the placement lists. But they are essentially concentrated in four areas: pre-school education, 1st Cycle, Physical Education and Special Education. There is a shortfall between the available candidates, their qualifications and needs on the ground.
On October 5th, World Teachers' Day, teachers will be on the street to demand action fundamental for the profession, and necessary for the country.
Original article available in Portuguese at http://postal.pt/
