Spanish Teachers: Higher Hours and Pay Than OECD, Yet PISA Scores Decline

Spanish Teachers: More Hours Than OECD and Above-Average Salaries, But PISA Scores Plummet

The secondary school teachers in Spain deliver 1,053 teaching hours per year, 144 more than the OECD average and 25 more than the EU average. Their regulated salary in secondary education reaches $57,758 in purchasing power parity, compared to the OECD average of $53,456. In other words, they work more hours and earn more than their European counterparts. Yet, the PISA report continues its freefall.
The question is inevitable: where does the demand for fewer hours and more money come from?

Some argue that teachers are slackers who take advantage of bridges, holidays, and strikes to avoid teaching. But OECD data debunks that caricature. When they call for reduced hours, they are not asking to fall below the European average; they are asking to approach it. And when they ask for more money, it is not because their absolute pay is low, but because it takes 39 years to reach the highest bracket of the salary scale—one of the slowest pogre in a developed country.

The real problem seems to lie elsewhere. Bureaucracy has turned the teacher into a paper manager, with less and less time for actual teaching. The authority of the professor has eroded to the point where many become social workers. And parents, who should be the primary educators, often delegate all responsibility to the school. Added to this is a serious deficit: more than half of new mathematics teachers in secondary education are not mathematicians.

With these challenges, it is difficult to build a competitive educational system.

Some analyses point to the student body composition, with a higher presence of immigrant students, influencing PISA results. But that variable does not explain the generalized collapse or the gap with countries like Finland or South Korea. The reality is that the Spanish education system has been in crisis for years, and teachers are the perfect scapegoat.

Meanwhile, the demand for more resources and fewer hours remains on the table. And the PISA report, like an unrelenting thermometer, continues to register a fever. Is the teaching staff the problem, or is it the system surrounding them? The answer, as almost always, is more complex than it seems.