School of Education

Lecturer in Education Dr Tore Bernt Sorensen presented the findings from his study on teacher shortages in the European Union to the European Parliament’s Culture and Education Committee (CULT) earlier this week.

The study "Teacher Shortage Crisis in the European Union" examines the notion of teacher shortages, and maps instances across the EU.

In the study Dr Sorensen also reviews the factors which matter for addressing teacher shortages, and presents four short case studies (from Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland) which illustrate the diversity of national contexts and policy responses, before offering policy recommendations for national and EU-level actions to help tackle the issue.

Following the presentation, MEPs from the eight different political groups represented in the European Parliament commented and asked a series of pertinent questions about the Study and the issues at stake. Some of the issues discussed included:

• the limitations of existing comparative indicators in Europe.
• the wider implications and cascading effects of teacher shortages for e.g. educational quality and inequity.
• the precarity of teachers’ employment in some Member States such as Italy and Greece.
• the importance of focusing on recruitment of new teachers as well as the retention of teachers at all career stages.
• the need for addressing teacher shortages while respecting minority educational rights
• student behaviour and the quality of teacher-student relationships as key factors for teacher well-being and retaining teachers.
• the need for rewarding qualified teachers taking on jobs in hard-to-staff areas.
• how policy actions at national level and EU level – ideally in combination – can address teacher shortages.

The session clearly indicated that the issue of teacher shortages and how to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession – on the national level and on the EU-level - are very present concerns for the MEPs. The coming months will see much further activity and debate about the teaching profession at the EU level, and the study feeds into this ongoing work.

---

First published: 29 September 2026