A team of researchers from ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa analysed absenteeism among teaching classes over five years and concluded that, on average, primary and secondary school teachers miss “around two million days a year”, the study coordinator, Isabel Flores told Lusa.

On average, 11 thousand teachers are absent from work every day and this absence means that every day, five thousand classes are affected by the lack of at least one teacher, according to the study “The demographic and labour reality of public education teachers in Portugal 2016/2017 – 2020/2021”.

Despite the large numbers, the vast majority of teachers never miss or miss less than 10 days a year and therefore “the idea of ​​imagining that schools are abandoned is not even fair”, reads the study to which Lusa had access.

Professor Isabel Flores adds that absenteeism levels among public school teachers are similar to those in other Public Administration classes.

Between 30% and 40% of teachers are never absent and another 50% are absent less than ten days a year, with a group of 10% responsible for 80% of days absent.

Health is the main reason for absences and, in half of the cases analysed, chronic illnesses justify the absences, but there are also many records of specific illnesses (25%).

Speaking to Lusa, the teacher highlighted that the aging of the teaching class ends up having an influence on absenteeism: Between the ages of 40 and 55, teachers have fewer long-term absences (5%), from the age of 62 onwards, cases increase exponentially (20%).

“The possibility of teachers having long-term absences is seven times greater among teachers who already had long-term absences in the previous year”, she added.

Looking at the map of Portugal it is clear that there are “small territorial patches” where long-term absences are more frequent, namely in the regions of Beira Baixa and Alto Tâmega.

The municipalities of Proença-a-Nova and Idanha-a-Nova stand out, followed by Penedono and Freixo de Espada à Cinta and finally Montalegre and Vimioso.

South of the Tagus River, only Borba has a high percentage of teachers with absences lasting more than 30 days.

The study also reveals that in the year in which the Covid-19 pandemic was declared, absenteeism also soared in schools: In the 2020/2021 school year, there were more than half a million days of absences than the standard of previous years, which was always around two million.

Health issues are the main reason for teacher absences, but there are also other reasons such as civic issues, including joining strikes: “In the 2017/2018 school year, despite being visible in the media, strikes represented only 4% of absences ”, the study reads.

The researchers also created a broader portrait of teachers: who they are, what type of contracts link them to schools, what their schedules are like and what subjects they teach.

The portrait is of an aging class more concentrated on the country's coast. In the 2020/2021 school year, the average age of teachers was 51 years old, with 19% already over 60 years old.

In schools, there are fewer and fewer students and more teachers. Over the five years under analysis, there was an increase in the number of teachers hired, which was equivalent to a reduction in staff.