European Trade Union Committee for Education

In most European countries, reading, writing and literature have the highest number of lessons allocated in schools’ curricula, especially in primary education, followed by mathematics, which however is more represented in primary than in general secondary education. These are the conclusions of a recently published Eurydice Report on Recommended Annual Instruction Time in Full-time Compulsory Education in Europe 2017/18.

The report analyses the recommended minimum instruction time in full-time compulsory general education in 43 European education systems. It has found that since 2016, the minimum instruction time hardly changed in most European countries and there remain only few education systems where local authorities and schools enjoy some flexibility on the decision about the distribution of instruction time across grade levels and disciplines (e.g. the Netherlands, Finland, the UK (Wales), Czech Republic). Another important finding of the report is that while natural sciences are underrepresented in the European curricula in primary education and become more prominent at secondary level, social studies take up only 5% of lesson time or less in primary and between 8 % and 11% of lesson time in secondary education.

ETUCE notes that social studies and citizenship education are key subjects for promoting the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, tolerance, and equality, and preparing active and responsible European citizens.