The assessment was released by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation (MECI), one week after the official start of the 2025/2026 school year.

According to data from the Education System Management Agency, as of September 17, schools had requests to fill 2,410 schedules, of which 1,042 (43%) were full.

Across 810 school clusters and non-clustered schools, 635 (78%) were short at least one teacher, but the situation is more severe in 38 schools.

In these 38 schools, there were more than 10 unfilled schedules, and 11 schools lacked at least 10 teachers for full schedules.

The data confirms that teacher recruitment difficulties persist, particularly in the Lisbon area, where 20 schools have more than 10 requests for schedules, and in the Setúbal Peninsula, where five schools are in the same situation.

By recruitment groups, the subjects with the greatest shortage are also not new and, as in previous years, preschool, special education, Portuguese for the 3rd cycle, and IT stand out.

Even so, there are 16,400 teachers with professional qualifications who have not yet been placed.

Contrast

The most recent data contrasts with the assessment made by the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, on the eve of the start of the school year, when he guaranteed that in at least 98% of schools, students would have classes in all subjects, since all teachers had already been placed.

Recalling that the public school teaching staff totals approximately 130,000, the Ministry of Education (MECI) now emphasizes that "with a teaching staff of this size, it is expected that, throughout the school year, there will be appointments to be filled," due to retirements, medical leave, or maternity and parental leave.

Therefore, the Ministry implemented, at the beginning of last week, a new placement process, with recruitment reserves every three business days (until now, recruitment reserves were weekly), allowing placement to be "twice as fast."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education (MECI) highlights reducing the number of unfilled appointments for extended periods as a priority.

"It is very important to identify schools with structural teacher shortages, which are reflected in extended unfilled schedules. Solving these structural problems requires targeted measures for these schools," the department states, citing measures such as holding an extraordinary competition to hire approximately 1,800 teachers in the most needy regions or providing additional support to teachers displaced in these areas.