Every year, one third of teachers change schools.
Last year, more than 35,000 teachers worked in a different public school or institute than the year before.
Barcelona"It's a very complex issue, and if it hasn't been resolved, it's precisely because it's a complicated problem. If it weren't, they would have met twenty years ago and resolved it." This is how Josep Maria Castellà, a professor at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and former member of the Catalan School Council, defines one of the main problems facing the organization of the Catalan public education system: high teacher turnover.
"It's an issue that's been on the table for some time, but last year we reached a point that was quite worrying, and we've reported many cases throughout the country," says Lidón Gasull, director of AFFAC (the association that represents the majority of AFAs in Catalonia). Iolanda Segura, spokesperson for USTEC, the largest union in the Catalan education sector, also points this out: "We are at the peak of temporary employment because we were already experiencing a situation in which, in recent years, the rate of people without a permanent position was very high."
The high turnover of teachers in public education is not only a perception of certain sectors or specific schools and institutes, but is a widespread trend. According to data accessed by ARA through a transparency request, last year up to 35,188 teachers worked in a different school or institute than the previous year. In other words, between the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years, 33% of teachers changed schools.
That a third of teachers change schools each academic year is not a one-off phenomenon in the last year: Between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years, 33,299 teachers changed schools, representing 31.7% of the total number of teachers who were active at least once during the academic year. Similar situations have occurred in previous academic years, with 28.3% of teachers changing schools in the 2022-2023 academic year and 31.4% in 2021-2022.
It should be noted that in Catalonia, almost 30% of schools are state-funded, and therefore, their teacher management is different and, in general, the staff is more stable. Now, the sector reports that they are short more than 3,000 teachers, since the private sector continues with the same staff it had in 1995.
More turnover in secondary schools
Regarding the type of schools that experience the highest turnover, Toni Verger, an expert in educational policy and school governance, points out that it is a phenomenon that occurs more in secondary schools. Verger, who co-authored the study Schools and teachers versus center autonomy, published by the Bofill Foundation, details that two of the most relevant factors for higher teacher turnover in secondary schools are that high schools have more specialized areas and some have a structural shortage of teachers, and that, in general, problems of coexistence with students are more frequent in secondary schools than in primary schools. "This doesn't mean that the student body is more conflictive, but international literature does highlight that it is a stage in which more coexistence issues must be addressed," argues the author.
On the other hand, Verger explains that, although they initially thought that highly complex schools suffered more teacher turnover, their research determined that in Catalonia there is no substantial difference between schools with greater or lesser complexity. "Turnover is very high in all schools, regardless of their complexity. What is certain is that in the most complex schools, stronger ties between teachers, students, and families are needed, and therefore, this instability affects them more," clarifies the educational policy expert. In this sense, it must be taken into account that in the course that begins this Monday until One third of students in Catalan classrooms will need specific educational support, whether due to learning disorders or socioeconomic vulnerability.
"There are centers that upon arrival in July can have a 30, 40 or 50% teacher turnover and that, as is evident at first glance, is catastrophic for planning," warns Castellà, who also points out how in the latest PISA reports it has been observed as one of the constants of the countries with the best and in each center there is a tendency to team up and create their own project." In the same sense, the spokesperson for USTEC and the director of AFFAC denounce that all of this has an impact on the work of teachers and also on students. "If you have an educational system based on the quality of the teaching staff and these teachers suffer from instability, this affects learning. Students must constantly adapt to new ways of doing things, and a lot of time is wasted," Gasull criticizes. Segura also points out that on many occasions, "it is more difficult for teachers to adapt to these new dynamics than for students."
Clash between individual rights and the collective interest
While the entire sector agrees that high turnover has a negative impact on education, when it comes to the reasons that have led to this situation, the consensus is less broad. "The main cause is that there is a clash between the individual right of teachers to go to work at the school where they find it best for them and the organizational or collective right to have these more stable teams," explains the UPF professor, who details how "in this dilemma, the unions defend individual rights and the current scoring system, while specialists accustom specialists."
In this way, Verger explains how in Catalonia, teacher assignment is highly centralized in a scoring system that works by accumulating merits and, above all, seniority: "Teachers, based on their score, choose the school of their preference, and many, for family and work-life balance reasons, seek out schools that are more popular." However, given that the score increases as the years go by, positions vary, and supply and demand at each center tend not to coincide, the turnover rate remains high. "It is the right of every civil servant teacher to change centers until they reach the position they want permanently," explains Castellà, who insists that "the system greatly benefits the individual right of civil servants and harms the creation of teams because there can be a very high percentage of teachers who do not continue at the same center."
On the other hand, from the USTEC union, Segura argues that one of the main reasons for this high turnover is the administration's poor management of positions: "Not all the positions needed in the transfer competition have been removed, and many people who had permanent positions have been allowed to continue at one center and not the next." Here, Segura adds that in the last three years, several teacher stabilization processes have been carried out, which have "civilized" 35,000 people. Again, these teachers will have permanent jobs, but many do not necessarily have them in the permanent location they desire and will have to change positions until they reach their final destination.
Finally, the union spokesperson raises another factor: in the union's opinion, school and institute administrations have been given too much power to make "selection attempts" through the staffing decree—a regulation that allows a percentage of a center's positions to be determined based on the needs deemed by the administration—and the needs deemed by the administration—and temporary teachers to continue working at the school or institute. "When you leave continuity in the hands of certain administrations, they don't decide based on objective criteria," Segura argues. However, both Verger and Castellà assert that the staffing decree has been positive in trying to find a balance between the individual right of teachers to work wherever they want and the collective interest of having stable teams more specialized to the needs of each school.
Can it go further?
As with the reasons, there is no unanimous view on what might happen from now on. USTEC is not in favor of the latest stabilization measures taken, such as the increase in the number of competitive examinations or The measure advanced by the ARA is that, starting this year, a competition for the transfer of teachers will be held in Catalonia every year.. "It's true that in the first few years it will cause a lot of commotion and movement, but there will come a time when we will achieve stability in the teaching staff," says Segura.
On the contrary, more than 500 teachers and around 20 educational centers have signed a lawsuit led by Clam Educatiu, the Forum for the Future of Education, and the Association of Directors of Public Education of Catalonia (AXIA), in which they warn the Minister of Education that the planned changes in the organization will result in a great destabilization of the teaching teams of public schools. in the short term." In the document, they argue that the high number of vacancies in this year's transfer competition, coupled with the fact that this year it has not been possible to request the continuation of interim teachers or create new designated positions, will lead to increased teacher mobility, impacting the management and pedagogical continuity of schools.
