Schools in Romania are facing a shortage of teachers. The average is one teacher for every 14 students
Romania is one of the European Union countries with a shortage of teachers in relation to the number of students.
While the EU average is one teacher for every 12 students, in Romania, it's one teacher for every 14, and specialists say this affects the quality of education.
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In addition to the shortage of teachers, some of them are getting older, and in the next 10-15 years, many will retire.
For example, the Marine High School in Galați is in great need of specialists in their core subject, marine studies. Practical training was previously conducted by a master instructor who was 72 years old. After his departure, three retirees were hired, paid by the hour.
Prof. Antoaneta Costea, Director of the Marine Technological High School in Galați: "We found the personnel we required among three young retirees, former commanders. They are between 50 and 54 years old".
Marian Râșnoveanu, retired commander, instructor professor: "I wanted to continue in my profession and use the experience I've gained. It's not lucrative at all, but that's not what's important".
In Romania, most teachers were between 41 and 45 years old in 2022 - 41,000. If we look at teachers over the age of 45, there were a total of 70,000, with nearly 6,000 already retired. However, when we consider teachers aged 18 to 30, the total number is only 19,000.
The quality of education is declining
Apart from the age of the teaching staff, according to Eurostat, Romania also has one of the lowest teacher-to-student ratios in the entire European Union, with one teacher for every 14 students. Romania ranks fourth, after the Netherlands, France and Slovakia. The EU average is one teacher for every 12 students, with the lowest ratio in Greece, where there is one teacher for eight students.
Marian Stas, education expert: "The more children per teacher, the lower the quality of education. We need to realize that we need to work with fewer students per teacher to achieve better results. Moreover, higher education doesn't produce teachers; it produces philologists with pedagogy credits, mathematicians with pedagogy credits, but there is no undergraduate program for the teaching profession. Being a historian means one thing; being a history teacher means something else".
In the European Union in 2021, there were 5.24 million teachers in primary, secondary and high school education, with 73 percent of them being female. This gender distribution is also seen in Romania, where most teachers are female. However, even at the member state level, teaching doesn't appear to be an attractive profession, considering that only 8 percent of teachers are under 30 years old, while around 40 percent, which is over two million teachers, are over 50 years old.
According to UNESCO, globally, 44 million teachers are needed to meet the goals for primary and secondary education for all children by 2030.
