The FNE — Federação Nacional da Educação, affiliated with the UGT, presented this Monday, the 14th, a proposal for the creation of a National Map of Teaching Needs 2035, which would allow anticipating the needs for teachers by council, QZP, and recruitment group. The trade union federation, led by Pedro Barreiros, revealed that Portugal may need to recruit 38,779 new teachers by the 2034/35 school year, representing an average of 3,800 teachers per year.
The needs are divided territorially: 13,381 in the North, 10,711 in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, 9,656 in the Center, 3,221 in the Alentejo, and 1,810 in the Algarve. More than half of the needs — 20,606 teachers — is concentrated in the 3rd cycle and secondary education, with emphasis on the areas of Portuguese, Mathematics, Special Education, Physics and Chemistry, English, and Biology and Geology.
The FNE warns that, with only 2,141 graduates from teacher training courses in 2022/23, the supply is clearly below the needs. The federation also states that, by 2034/35, the number of students should decrease by about 5%, but the availability of teachers may drop by about 37%, mainly due to retirements and reductions in teaching hours associated with age.
The document proposes that the first integrated version of the Map be published by March 2027, with identification of priority groups and territories by June. The strategy must be based on four dimensions: Attract, Train, Settle, and Retain. The FNE clarifies that the presentation comes after it requested concrete information from the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation that it did not receive in response.
