Prague, Aug 1 (CTK) – The Czech school employees’ trade unions and representatives of universities and education associations agreed today to stage a protest against teachers’ low salaries in regional schools and higher education facilities on September 1, school unions spokeswoman Jana Kasparova has told CTK today.
Representatives of teachers say the situations in the education sector has not considerably improved yet though the government declared this its priority.
The current coalition government of the Social Democrats (CSSD), ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) has taken only few measures in this respect, unions and academics agreed.
“The pay level of teachers in regional schools and academic employees of universities remains unbearable and leads to the decline of the whole society,” they said in a joint statement released to CTK.
The continuation of this situation threatens the education level and thereby also the future prosperity of society, they said. This is why they want to propose further steps.
Experts have long criticised teachers’ low salaries.
Last year, the unions launched the End of Cheap Teachers campaign to achieve a rise amounting to 130 percent of the average pay in the Czech Republic by 2020. The national average was 27,889 crowns in the first quarter of 2017, according to the Czech Statistical Office (CSU).
The teachers’ salaries rose by 8 percent last year.
Now, the unions demand at least a 15-percent rise. However, politicians have promised between 8 and 12 percent.
Universities are also striving for a higher budget. It has stagnated in the past few years.
The Finance Ministry plans to raise the funding of universities by 100 million crowns in its draft 2018 state budget, though former education minister Katerina Valachova (Social Democrats, CSSD) promised a rise by some five billion crowns. Her successor Stanislav Stech (CSSD) said he believed he would succeed in negotiating a higher budget.
Finance Minister Ivan Pilny (ANO) reiterated that the education sector was one of his priorities, but that he must takes demands by other sectors into consideration as well.
Along with the trade unions, the Universities’ Council and the Czech Conference of Rectors, the Union of School Associations of the Czech Republic and the Association of Grammar School Directors will take part in the protests.
($1=22.240 crowns)
