Teachers need to work, on average, 39 years and be 62 years old to reach the last step of the career, according to the report "State of Education", which warns of the precariousness and unattractiveness of the teaching career.
The National Education Council (CNE) released today, January 26, the report “State of Education 2021”, which presents an integrated view of a set of indicators, of which the portrait of teachers stands out, who in the last two months have intensified their protests and strikes demanding better wages and working conditions.
For several years, unions have denounced the precariousness of teachers, known for walk with the house on your back to the taste of vacancies that open up in schools and new work contracts, as well as the existence of mechanisms that prevent progression when they finally manage to enter the career.
On average, a teacher spends the first 16 years of work teaching with successive contracts. During this period, the salary is always the same.
When they manage to join the Ministry of Education staff, they are, on average, 47 years old and have almost 16 years of service.
When they reach the 4th step, they are faced with quotas and vacancies for access to the 5th, which makes progression difficult.
In the past academic year, one out of four teaching staff (25,4%) was in the 4th step, and only 6,3% were in the next step, says the report released today.
Many teachers never reach the top of their careers or, when they do, are on the brink of retirement, according to the report's data, which shows that public school teachers on the continent need, on average, "39 years of service and 62 years of age to move up to the last pay scale'.
Despite being an aging class – most are over 50 years old – only 16% are in the 10th step: Portuguese teachers are among the Europeans who needed more years of service to reach the top of their careers, according to the OECD report “Education at a Glance 2022”.
At the beginning of the year, the Minister of Education underlined, in Parliament, that nine out of ten teachers had progressed two steps in their careers since 2018, despite recognizing that this does not mean that «everything is wonderful and that there is no reason for discontent» .
Salaries are one of the reasons that lead teachers to take to the streets and the CNE report says that «Portugal is also one of the countries where the starting salary of teachers in the 3rd Cycle of Basic Education and secondary education is lower to the OECD average', but 'the top salary is above average'.
Despite the precariousness and low wages, most teachers have a degree or equivalent degree and, in the last decade, there has been a progressive increase in the number of doctorates or masters, says the CNE.
The aging of the teaching class – almost 22% are at least 60 years old – and the unattractiveness of the profession mean that there is a shortage of teachers, a problem that is also felt among higher education teachers.
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