Portugal’s Teacher Shortage Reaches Critical Levels

Portugal stands at an educational crossroads. As another school year begins, the country’s public education system faces a stark reality: a massive shortfall of teachers that threatens to unravel decades of progress. The National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) has sounded the alarm with renewed urgency this autumn, warning that without immediate action, Portuguese schools will struggle to function within a decade. By 2034, the country needs to hire nearly 39,000 new educators just to maintain current service levels. Yet the government’s response remains sluggish, and the teaching profession itself has lost much of its former appeal. This is not a future crisis; it is a present emergency playing out in classrooms across the nation.

The warning signs have been visible for years, but Portuguese authorities largely ignored them. Francisco Gonçalves, a secretary general at Fenprof, articulates the frustration bluntly: the diagnosis has been known for a long time, but the government has failed to act with sufficient speed. The Education Ministry’s hesitation to reform the teaching career structure has undermined any attempt to restore the profession’s status. Rather than strengthening teaching as a career path, recent policy choices have pointed toward degradation. Teachers increasingly reject poor working conditions paired with symbolic recognition that yields no concrete improvements to their daily lives.

The crisis is no longer theoretical. Schools across Portugal already report vacant positions, unqualified substitute teachers, and truncated curricula due to understaffing. This deterioration signals the early stages of a more catastrophic collapse. Fenprof has structured its response around three core demands: acceleration of career reform, equitable salary policies, and rapid responses to specific regional needs.

A comprehensive diagnostic study titled “Study of Teaching Staff Needs 2025-2034” paints an alarming picture. Over the next decade, nearly 46,000 teachers will leave the profession, primarily through retirement. Of the current 122,000 active educators, only 76,000 are projected to remain in 2034. Although the student population is expected to decline slightly by 5 percent, this contraction pales against the predicted 37 percent loss of teaching personnel. The mathematics are brutal: Portugal must recruit an average of 3,800 teachers annually, a pace that the current training system cannot sustain.

The geographic dimension adds another layer of complexity. While northern and central regions may see declining student populations, the Lisbon metropolitan area will likely experience modest growth. This disparity places Portugal’s capital at the epicenter of recruitment tensions. Yet attracting educators to Lisbon proves particularly difficult. The region’s elevated living costs, especially housing prices far above the national average, deter young teachers and contract staff from establishing themselves there permanently. Schools struggle to fill vacancies in scientific and linguistic disciplines, sectors already experiencing acute shortages. A vicious cycle emerges: rising demand amplifies recruitment difficulties, and without targeted interventions for high-demand zones, Lisbon risks becoming the emblem of a nationwide educational crisis.

“Portugal faces a critical shortage of nearly 39,000 teachers by 2034, with the Lisbon metropolitan area experiencing the most severe recruitment challenges due to elevated housing costs and living expenses” – National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) Annual Report, 2024

The pipeline supplying new teachers reveals the deeper structural problem. By 2034, universities will graduate only 20,000 new educators. Yet even these optimistic projections mask troubling attrition. Of every 100 places opened in teacher-training programs, only 68 percent are actually filled. Among those who enroll, merely 73 percent complete their degrees. Consequently, fewer than half of available training spots result in qualified teachers. Multiple factors drive this collapse: low professional appeal, precarious early-career conditions, absent short-term salary prospects, and regional desertification that particularly punishes rural and interior areas.

The government has finally moved, though late and modestly. The Ministry of Education has signed protocols with eleven universities to expand teacher-training capacity, creating nearly 9,700 new places by 2030 with a budget of 27 million euros. This expansion heads in the right direction but remains marginal against the overall deficit. The ministry has also launched a free, distance-learning program through Universidade Aberta to certify non-credentialed teachers already working in schools, aiming to professionalize thousands within two years. Yet this measure cannot bridge the structural deficit of applicants or halt the cascade of departures among senior educators.

Education Minister Fernando Alexandre acknowledges reality: the teacher crisis will not resolve quickly. Rebalancing flows requires years. Teaching, once viewed as stable and prestigious, now suffers from a degraded reputation. The government hopes to reverse this through gradual salary increases, reduced administrative burden, and better integration of theory and practice in training programs. But this strategy, still vague in execution, confronts a complex socioeconomic reality. The profession, often marked by excessive workload, precarious beginnings, and eroding purchasing power, no longer attracts candidates as it once did.

This crisis, however, contains hidden opportunity. The teacher shortage reveals a fundamental transformation in the educational model. The urgency is genuine, but it also opens a window for substantial change. Portugal must redefine its social compact around education, placing teachers at the center of collective ambition. For international professionals, particularly from Brazil and Francophone nations, this context could represent opportunity—provided Portugal simplifies administrative barriers and streamlines credential equivalency. The country’s digital transformation initiatives could facilitate remote learning solutions and modernize teacher training programs to attract tech-savvy educators.

A country chronically short of teachers could become fertile ground for those seeking to teach in a transforming European nation. However, the broader housing crisis affecting expats and locals alike compounds recruitment challenges, particularly in high-demand areas like Lisbon and Porto where teacher salaries struggle to match rental costs.

Yet without robust structural measures and genuine political commitment to restore teaching’s appeal, the system will continue eroding. The future of Portuguese public education depends equally on political will and on the capacity to rekindle a profession too long neglected. The window for prevention remains open, but it closes with each passing school year.