Education unions launch petition tour for increased funding

Prague, Sept 3 (CTK) - Czech education trade unions started a tour of regional capitals as well as other towns with a petition in which they alert to the insufficient funding of education before lawmakers discuss the draft budget for 2013, outside the Education Ministry yesterday.

"We want to draw attention to that education needs support," Frantisek Dobsik, chairman of the education trade unions, said.

The petition tour that is to continue throughout September and October, is also supported by culture workers' trade unions that do not like the financing of theatres in regions, saying most money goes to Prague theatres.

Dobsik said he expects more than 10,000 signatures to be added to the petition.

He said the salaries of teachers have not been raised as promised and that debates will be also held at universities and concentrate mainly on the possibility of students paying "enrolment fees."

According to a study by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Analysis, released yesterday, the pay of 70 to 90 percent of university-educated employees is higher than the average pay of a teacher.

In Prague last year, for instance, the average pay was 31,109 crowns while the average pay of a Prague teacher was 25,762 crowns.

The Education Ministry abolished an 800 crown contribution per first-year-pupil to schools, destined for teaching aids, as from the new school year that starts yesterday.

In 2001 schools got a total of 1.6 billion crowns for the aids compared with a mere 600 million crowns last year.

The government draft budget for 2013 counts with 139.6 billion crowns for education, which is 1 percent more than this year. Culture is to get 8.9 billion crowns, which is a 5 percent increase.

"The Education Minister informed representatives of the Bohemian and Moravian Education Employees' Trade Union about the goals that he wants to achieve in his term, and told them that negotiations about the 2013 budget are developing slightly positively," the ministry's press department reacted to the union action.

The department said Petr Fiala (unaffiliated), who became education minister in May 2012, wants to meet unions regularly.

The current centre-right coalition government's regular term ends in mid-2014.

The number of elementary school pupils started to grow last year. The number of first-year pupils is 3500 higher this year than last year and it will total 104,500 in the 10.5 million country.

On the contrary, the past years with a low natality now affect secondary schools. The number of students dropped from 454,000 last year to 428,00 this year.

($1=19.700 crowns)