Andorra Teachers' Union to Track Unrecorded Overtime Amid Staffing Crisis

The Public Teaching Union (SEP) will collect data throughout the current school year to quantify the extra hours teachers are working at Andorra's education centres amid ongoing staffing shortages.

SEP general secretary Sergi Esteves explained to the Andorran News Agency (ANA) that the effort aims to generate statistics highlighting unrecorded overtime, which extends far beyond officially logged hours in job postings or contracts. He distinguished between contracted extra hours and the additional unreported time teachers spend outside class hours on tasks such as lesson preparation.

These pressures are most acute in secondary education, baccalaureate programmes, and among specialist teachers, where falling student numbers lead to merged groups and higher workloads. Specialists, for example, now face increased demands for pupil assessments after managing around 200 students each.

Esteves linked the overtime surge to the union's longstanding call for urgent updates to outdated regulations governing staff roles and duties. Most of these rules date from 2004 to 2012 and fail to reflect modern centre needs, resulting in undefined tasks where "everyone ends up doing everything."

Persistent vacancies, despite ministry efforts to fill them, create operational disruptions such as empty classrooms, though human resources teams have typically resolved issues in recent years. Esteves stressed that a strong education system should prevent such problems altogether.

He blamed chronic recruitment challenges primarily on Andorra's high living costs, particularly housing prices, which erode the appeal of teaching salaries. Even educators who once commuted from Catalonia's Alt Urgell now find local rents outweigh wage benefits, preferring to stay home. The profession's declining social prestige compounds these economic barriers.

While Andorra shares structural issues like living expenses with Catalonia, Esteves noted key differences, including greater resources for inclusive schooling. He warned that without immediate improvements to working conditions, generational replacement problems already emerging would worsen.