European Trade Union Committee for Education

EURYDICE has published a report on the recommended minimum instruction time in full-time compulsory general education in 2016/17 in 42 European education systems. Since 2010, EURYDICE issues yearly reports on the recommended minimum instruction time, analysing recent policy changes, the flexibility of local authorities and schools with a view to distributing the instruction time across grades and subjects, and the instruction time provided for different subjects.

The 2016/2017 report finds that minimum instruction time tends to be stable and that changes in the instruction time for certain subjects reflect education policy priorities. The report furthermore states that, in most countries, official steering documents define how the recommended minimum instruction time is allocated across the different grades and subjects. In primary education, reading, writing and literature are the most taught subjects, complemented by the teaching of foreign languages at secondary level. The second largest share of the curriculum in primary education is allotted to maths. In secondary education, the teaching time for maths decreases and natural sciences become more important.