In 2024, EU countries devoted 4.8% of their gross domestic product to education, or 9.7% of total public expenditure, according to the report ‘Investing in Education 2026’, published by the Commission on Tuesday 1 September.
They ranked behind the United States and the United Kingdom, and ahead of Japan, with Sweden and Estonia being the two countries in the EU to exceed US spending.
However, while investment in education within the EU is stabilising, it remains slightly below the pre-pandemic level in terms of its share of public expenditure (10% in 2019, 9.3% in 2020 and 2021, 9.4% in 2022 and 9.6% in 2023), the Commission also notes.
The report focuses on teachers’ pay. While candidates in the 2027 French presidential election have notably made this a campaign promise, “salary satisfaction continues to be associated with a higher likelihood of choosing the teaching profession again”, the report confirms.
It also stresses that more than three out of four teachers (76.5%), if given the choice of changing profession, would choose to continue teaching, the Commission explains in a press release, but the figures are declining and this willingness varies according to gender and experience.
In 2024, 76.5% of teachers in the EU said that they would choose teaching again, compared with 79.2% in 2018. Female teachers were 12 percentage points more likely than male teachers to choose this profession again. This probability gradually decreases with experience – by up to 12 percentage points among teachers with more than 20 years’ experience compared with early-career teachers.
Material and non-material factors also influence the attractiveness of the teaching profession. Teachers satisfied with their salary are around seven percentage points more likely to choose teaching again, while a positive perception of the working environment and of the value of the profession increases this probability by around four percentage points. Professional collaboration and motivations linked to social usefulness also have a positive impact, although a more modest one.
Teachers’ salaries account for the largest share of public education expenditure in the EU. In 2024, 66% of public expenditure devoted to pre-primary and primary education and 72% to secondary education in the EU was allocated to staff remuneration, mainly teachers and head teachers.
However, developments show that, although salary costs rose significantly in nominal terms between 2015 and 2024, this increase reflects inflation more than structural changes in education systems, the report notes.
Lower salaries. And in most EU countries, teachers’ salaries remain lower than those of workers with a similar level of qualifications throughout their careers.
“On average across the EU, lower secondary teachers’ statutory starting salaries are 58% of the average earnings of similarly educated workers aged 25-64, while statutory salaries at the top of the scale reach 89% of those earnings”.
Likewise, the average real salary of lower secondary teachers amounts to 85% of the full-time salary of workers aged 25 to 64 with a higher education qualification.
However, while competitive salaries can support recruitment and retention, their impact appears limited when they are not accompanied by favourable working conditions and teachers’ wellbeing, the report concludes.
Reducing excessive professional demands – such as workload and stress – while improving professional resources can play a key role in maintaining teachers’ motivation. This is particularly important for retaining experienced teachers.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/n7l (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)