PRE-UNIVERSITY EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE EU: RELEVANT FEATURES OF ITS TEACHING STAFF

The decision makers in European Union are concerned with the education quality and working conditions of teachers. The profile of teachers and the attractiveness of the profession thus reach an important position in the debate on education in Europe, even if these two issues do not show the same challenges everywhere. In other words, the task of national educational authorities is hampered by the unbalanced structure by gender and age that characterizes teachers. This paper aims to investigate the evolution of structure by gender and age of EU teaching staff. Therefore, we conduct a comparative analysis by age segments and by gender at the level of the European Union (28 countries) and the Eurozone (19 countries). The results of the research show an increase in imbalances in terms of age and gender structure, which requires action by education decision makers.