
Teachers’ role is evolving as new demands and expectations arise, together with new responsibilities. The profession has been going through a vocational crisis for some years. National and European policymakers have been developing solutions to mitigate the impact of shortages and maintain high-quality teaching standards. This report, focused on lower secondary teachers (ISCED 2), contributes to the debate by providing evidence on both policies and practices.

This study reviews the extent to which European Union (EU) topics are embedded at a range of levels across the school curricula of Member States of the EU. It first sets the scene by referring back to a previous report which summarised the situation back in 2012, and which made a series of recommendations for action by the EU and Member States.

The report ‘Teachers in Europe: Careers, Development and Well-being’ combines Eurydice data on national legislation with data on teachers’ practices and perceptions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS).


Communiqué of the European Ministers for Vocational Education and Training, the European Social Partners and the European Commission, meeting in Bruges on 7 December 2010 to review the strategic approach and priorities of the Copenhagen process for 2011-2020.

Riga Conclusions (2015) on a new set of medium-term deliverables in the field of VET for the period 2015-2020, as a result of the review of short-term deliverables defined in the 2020 Bruges Communiqué.

(Annex 1)

(Annex 4)

(Annex 3)

(Annex 2)