The shortage of teachers prompted the government to expand access to teaching for graduates after the Bologna Process (2006) without a teaching qualification. This measure, adopted in 2022, led to a sharp increase in the number of teachers in non-vocational schools. There are currently “around 3,000” teachers teaching only with so-called in-house qualifications, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has said. They represent 15.8% of the approximately 20 thousand contract teachers. At the start of the school year there were 1,260, a huge increase of 138%.
This means that these teachers have approximately 180,000 students, based on the (conservative) estimate that they will each have 60 students. Lisbon and Vale do Tejo are the areas of the country where these teachers are used the most. The subjects for which the largest number of teachers without pedagogical education are computer science, geography and mathematics, reveals the ME. “We are increasingly turning to graduates who, with all due respect, have not chosen the teaching profession, but do so only out of opportunism or because they are unemployed. We need full-time, professional teachers,” he said. CM Jose Feliciano Costa from Fenprof.