40 apartments to face the teaching crisis of Formentera: Education bets on housing
Education and the Island Council will promote rental housing for displaced teaching staff to facilitate the filling of positions and stabilize school staff.
PalmaThe Department of Education and the Council of Formentera want to build about forty rental homes intended for teaching staff displaced to the island. The two administrations signed a protocol to promote the project, which aims to provide a response to one of the main obstacles to covering and retaining teachers on the island, who mostly come from outside: the difficulty of finding affordable and stable housing. The future apartments would be located on land that the Council will cede in Es Pujols. The project is still in an initial phase. The administrations must specify the accommodation needs, the location, and the financing formulas. In addition, a technical commission will be created that will have up to twelve months to prepare a report with the diagnosis of needs and a proposal for action. Work is also being done with the Council of Ibiza to activate a similar project.
Subsequently, the Government and the Council plan to sign an agreement that will specify the transfer of the plot and the commitment of the Ministry of Education to finance the project and execute the works. The objective is to facilitate the arrival and stay of teaching staff who travel to Formentera to work in educational centers.
The initiative comes after years in which the management teams of the island's centers have warned of the difficulties in completing and, above all, stabilizing the staff. The housing issue is especially significant on an island with a very strained residential market and a limited supply of long-term rentals. As ARA Balears has explained on numerous occasions, the management teams of the Formentera centers explain that finding housing for the whole year is one of the main problems for teachers who arrive there. At IES Marc Ferrer, for example, last school year the staff consisted of 94 teachers, but only about thirty were permanent. The center warned of the rotation of a significant part of the faculty year after year. The situation also affects Primary schools. At CEIP Mestre Lluís Andreu, the management explained that more than half of the teachers were interim and pointed out the difficulties that provisionality generates for maintaining stable educational teams.
From bunk beds to apartments
The construction of specific housing for teachers represents a change with respect to the solutions proposed until now. In 2023, the Department of Education had already proposed that professionals relocated to Formentera could stay at the island's hostel, with a capacity of 32 places in rooms with bunk beds. The proposal aimed to temporarily alleviate the lack of housing for relocated public workers. Now, a more stable residential solution is being proposed, with rental housing specifically intended for teaching staff. The measure is part of the actions that the Government has been promoting to try to facilitate the filling of positions and reduce the difficulties involved in working on the islands with the greatest housing problems. In the case of Formentera, all teaching positions have been declared as very difficult to fill. Professionals assigned to the island also receive a specific supplement of 400 euros per month due to the difficulties associated with living on an island.
The lack of housing has been accompanied by other extraordinary measures to guarantee staffing. Starting from the 2026-2027 school year, teachers in Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera will be able to extend their active service until the age of 70 if they request it, a measure that the Government justifies due to the difficulties in covering certain specialties on these islands. However, a tough issue must be addressed. In Formentera, there is sufficient housing to accommodate teachers and the rest of the civil servants who arrive on the island to provide services to the people of Formentera. It is enough to look at any hotel and holiday home booking portal to verify this. However, the island's residents seem to prefer the money from a seasonal rental over that of a long-term stay with a five-year commitment.
Regarding the allocation of interim positions for the 2026-2027 school year, 63 of the 75 positions offered in Formentera were filled in the first round. Subsequently, in an urgent process, 10 more were allocated. Thus, the process ended with 73 of the 75 initial positions covered.
The new housing project addresses a problem that goes beyond the punctual coverage of positions: Formentera's ability to attract and retain teachers for more than one school year. The intention of the administrations is that having stable accommodation will reduce one of the barriers that hinder the consolidation of the island's educational staff. Time will tell if it is achieved.