AN AGE-OLD PROBLEM
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
It is a paradigmatic situation. Teachers in Portugal have been protesting over frozen salaries for over 10 years, organizing some of the biggest public protests the country has ever seen, and yet, a study from the OECD, published in September 2018, came to show that this professional class earns around 35% more than the average of professionals with a university degree in other sectors.
That, however, is a misleading statement. Since August 2005, salary increases for public school teachers have been suspended, but hiring has also been severely limited. Throughout the troika years, between 2011 and 2013, under a school system reorganization and optimization program designed to cut spending and improve resource efficiency (human and otherwise), over 2,500 schools closed across the country. With them, between 2010 and 2015, the Portuguese public education system lost as many as 25,000 teachers, 11,000 from schools' permanent payroll (a 10% decrease) and 14,000 from independent hires (a 50% decrease). Globally, in just four years, there was a decrease of 20% of the national number of teachers employed, according to the national Court of Audits (Tribunal de Contas).
Naturally, those that left were the ones with less service time and in less protected professional positions, in sum, the youngest. Combined with the reduction in the number of schools, the near suspension of new hires, and the constantly extended retirement age (according to reports, the average retirement age for teachers in 2005 was 56 years old, today it is closer to 66), these cuts have conspired to raise the percentage of teachers older than 50 to 38%. That is 3% higher than the OECD average and a 16% climb over the space of decade (2005/2016). The OECD average climbed 3% in the same period. Today only 1% of the teachers in public schools is aged below 30. The OECD average stands at 11%. This places the Portuguese public teaching staff as the second-oldest in the OECD, after, but not far from, Italy.
This setup is behind the strange disparity of salaries. In Portugal, promotions in the public sector are largely dependent on years of service. As most of the remaining teachers are those with the longest careers, that also means they are the ones with the highest salaries, which skews the figures.
Taking into account purchasing power, teacher salaries in Portugal are actually either in line with or below the OECD average depending on the number of service years. During the crisis years, these cuts were important in re-adjusting the national budget. Between 2010 and 2014, the Portuguese state's expenses in the education sector fell by 17.1%, a change worth over EUR1.2 billion during that period; however, the consequences of those decisions and cuts are now more visible than ever. New teachers have an almost impossible mission in trying to find a permanent position. Many professionals have been hired, year after year, by many different schools for over 20 years without being able to enter the permanent payroll of a school, living under constant uncertainty.
After the current socialist government came to power in 2015, backed by the Communist and Left Block parties, the issue of teachers' salaries and retirement age has again taken center stage. Unions are currently pressuring the government to lift the salary freeze imposed on public teaching careers and demanding compensation for the period without promotions and career advances. The government has so far proposed a salary increase recovery corresponding to two years, nine months, and 18 days of the lost period. The unions, for now, have refused to back down from their demand to receive compensation for the nine years, four months, and two days period, and as the 2019 National Budget continues under discussion, it is uncertain who will win the debate.
Back in June, the Deputy Secretary of State for Education suggested that lowering the age of retirement could be one of the paths to study in trying to address the issue of the ageing teachers, forcing some higher-paid older professionals to leave their positions and opening opportunities for young professionals. That would, however, have profound implications for the national budget, as the state would not only start paying salaries to the new teachers but also guarantee the pension plans of new retirees.
AN AGE-OLD PROBLEM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Focus: Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries
Making an Impact
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
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Don’t Mind the Disruption
Having won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Lisbon hosted the 2018 event. The relevance? Well, the contest began back in 1956 as a showcase not only of song, but of then-nascent live television broadcast technology. Today, Portugal is on the cutting edge of new technological developments.
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João Pedro Soeiro de Matos Fernandes , Minister , Environment and Energy Transition
The Ministry for the Environment and Energy Transition is focusing on decarbonizing the economy, valuing the territory and its habitats, and striving for a more circular use of the country's resources.
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António Braz Costa , General Manager, Portuguese Technological Centre for the Textile & Clothing Industries (CITEVE)
CITEVE has transformed the industry by promoting value addition, adopting the latest technologies, and ensuring the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
read articleFocus: New airport
Right Time to Seize Missed Opportunities
Portugal has seen its air traffic figures increase by as much as 80% in the last five years. As a result, its transportation infrastructure, and Lisbon's airport in particular, cannot cope with the rising numbers. A new airport project that will turn a military base into a commercial airport is now under discussion to bring much-needed relief to air traffic.
read articleInterview
Germano de Sousa , President, Grupo Germano de Sousa
Grupo Germano de Sousa's success can best be summed up by its understanding that science and medicine only really progress when technological development is combined with a deeper respect for human values and professional ethics.
read articleInterview
Isabel Capeloa Gil , Rector, Universidade Católica
Having pioneered the introduction of multiple subject areas to Portugal's tertiary education scene, Universidade Católica is aspiring to establish the country's first private medical school and introduce cutting-edge digital transformation.
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Carlos Guillén Gestoso , President, Escola Universitária de Ciências Empresariais, Saúde, Tecnologias e Engenharia & President, Atlantica University
Atlantica University differentiates through its company-university model and an MBA program in partnership with the University of California, Berkley, among other initiatives, to produce practical theoreticians.
read articleFocus: Public teaching staff
An Age-old Problem
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
read articleInterview
Pedro Queiroz , General Manager, Federation of the Portuguese Agri-Food Industry (FIPA)
Portugal's economic recovery has seen its F&B sector emerge with annual turnovers of EUR16 billion, thanks to FIPA's undeterred focus on stable policies, excellent nutrition standards, and sustainability.
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