Romania is facing an increasing deficit of teachers and a visible aging of the teaching staff, the most recent OECD report shows. If ten years ago the situation was more balanced, today one third of the teachers are over 50 years old.
The Ministry of Education recognizes the situation and seeks to attract young people in the system / photo source: Archive
The OTDE report on teachers in Romania reveals a cruel reality from education
Romania has twice as many positions for teachers left unoccupied in schools compared to ten years ago. One third of the teachers are over 50, the most recent OECD report shows. The ministry recognizes the situation and advances the idea of finding mechanisms to attract young teachers into the system. Until then, the austerity measures recently applied by the Government are strongly felt in schools, according to tvrinfo.ro.
According to the most recent OCDE report, “Education at a glance 2025”, On average, 1.9% of the positions of teachers remain unoccupied at the beginning of the school year in Romania. Comparatively, the OCDE average is 1.6%.
“The totally unequaled distribution on study disciplines causes us concerns in the very close future. For example, in physics, the ratio between the number of candidates and the number of free positions is a totally unsatisfactory one in the sense that we had at the last competition about 200 candidates in physics and almost 700 complete positions, without talking about the ones.” said Sorin Ion, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Education.
The experts looked at the data from 2023 compared to those of 2013. At the opposite pole, in Japan we are talking about 0.2%unoccupied positions, in France-0.1%, and in South Korea-0%.
The retired teachers, the last solution for many schools: “We do not know who will teach”
“In physics the same problem that Caragiale has. With 12 hours of physics that for 4-5 years are not taken and for 4-5 years we call, but this is the last year in which our two former colleagues, a pension teachers. said, according to the quoted source, Andrei Bodea, director, National College “Il Caragiale”, Bucharest.
The same report shows that we have fewer teachers over 50 years old in pre -school education for ten years. But in the case of high school teachers, things are different. The share of young people decreased from 13% in 2013 to 8% in 2023, and that of teachers over 50 years old increased from 29% to 32% in the same interval. On the other hand, at present, Romanian teachers are affected by the austerity measures adopted by the executive, mainly by the increase of the didactic norm and the reduction in the hourly payment.
School principals: “We make fireworks to cover the hours left without teachers”
“I had to complete the norm of a colleague, the geography teacher, with two hours of social education and I did a artifice even with a colleague of my chemistry who took over a few hours of biology. I did not use the artifice with the options. The options were established according to the calendar and personal to introduce some options at this time” Said Liliana Murguleț, director of the Gymnasium School 79, Bucharest
“We have a lot of colleagues to pay the hour. It was very difficult for us to tell them, being very good teachers who came that we will pay them only with 22 lei, but they came, they came out of passion.” Bogdan Rațiu, Professor Lb, stated for the quoted source. Romanian, UMFST “GE Palade” High School, Târgu Mureş.
The salaries of teachers in Romania, above the average of other employees with higher education. The difference from other countries
Teachers in Romania enjoy relatively high salaries compared to their colleagues from other member and partners. However, the tensions in the system are increasing, and the unions warn on a possible general strike.
The teachers in the primary education in Romania have higher salaries than other employees with higher education, according to the “Education at Glance 2025” report (“Brief Education”) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The OECD data show that teachers in primary education in Romania earn, on average, 14% more than other workers with higher education. In contrast, teachers in most OECD countries earn on average 17-19% less than their colleagues, graduates of higher education. According to the salary grids for 2024:
– a debutant teacher receives approximately 6.080 lei gross/monththe equivalent of 3,500–3,600 lei net,
– a teacher with teaching degree wins 7,500 gross lei/month (5,000–5,100 lei net)
– a teacher with teaching grade I and over 25 years of age can reach 10,232 gross lei/month (6,800–6,900 net lei).
