The National Federation of Education (FNE) expressed “profound surprise and concern” over the Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation (MECI) not offering any positions for Physics and Chemistry teachers in the recently announced extraordinary external competition.
The FNE refers to the competition launched this week by the Government aimed solely at schools in the regions of Lisbon and the Setúbal Peninsula, as well as some areas of Alentejo and Algarve, where students are often without classes due to a lack of teachers.
The competition opens 1,800 positions, notably seeking 310 Portuguese language teachers, 192 Mathematics teachers, and around 170 for primary education.
The FNE mentioned it is “incomprehensible that the vacancy map for this group appears entirely filled with zeros,” highlighting that schools “continue to have significant difficulties in ensuring Physics and Chemistry teachers, often replacing them with unqualified personnel or relying on extra hours for this subject.”
Therefore, the union questions the authorities about the criteria that led to this decision and calls for a correction to ensure these teachers “are not discriminated against and that schools can adequately meet the real educational needs.”
The extraordinary competition began on October 28 and ends on November 14, targeting preschool educators and teachers in primary and secondary education.
The Minister of Education revealed this week that nearly half of school clusters still faced a teacher shortage, with 12 clusters having at least 10 vacant positions.
“One of the most serious problems is the lack of teachers,” admitted Fernando Alexandre on Wednesday during the special consideration of the State Budget proposal for 2026 (OE2026).
“As of October 24, we had 1,240 schedules unfilled, 480 school clusters with at least one unfilled schedule, and 12 clusters with 10 or more unfilled schedules,” revealed Fernando Alexandre, acknowledging that the number might already be outdated.
The 1,240 unfilled schedules are “all concentrated” in the Greater Lisbon area, the Setúbal Peninsula, and some areas of Alentejo and Algarve, with the OE2026 proposal planning to “spend an additional 118 million euros” on measures to combat the teacher shortage.
To attract teachers to schools, the ministry has launched several measures such as travel support for those assigned far from home and a new extraordinary external competition for schools facing greater hiring challenges.
The minister recognized that, within a pool of “more than 128,000 teachers (in schools), it is natural to always have schedules to be filled, the question is the speed at which each schedule is filled.”
