Prague, Aug 30 (CTK) – The salaries of Czech teachers should rise by at least 15 percent in each of the three years starting with 2018 and they should exceed 130 percent of the average wage in the country by 2020, Marketa Seidlova, deputy chairwoman of the Trade Union of School Employees, said yesterday.
That is why the campaign End of Cheap Teachers will continue also after the state sets aside an additional 8 percent for teachers’s salaries as from September, Seidlova added.
She said trade unions assess this one-off pay increase positively, but they do not consider it the definitive solution.
If the trade unions succeeded with their demands, the teachers’ average pay would amount to 46,409 crowns by 2020 according to the unions’ calculations, which estimate the average pay in the national economy to reach 33,300 crowns by then.
The unions also want to alert to the higher workload on teachers in connection with changes to the inclusion of children with a handicap as from September, Seidlova said.
They will entail the preparation of individual education plans and consultations with the children’ assistants, she said.
The union chairman, Frantisek Dobsik, said the unions plan a large conference with Education Minister Katerina Valachova at which they will remember the Teachers’ Charter, which is an international recommendation concerning teaches’ status of 1966.
School trade unions demanded at least 10 percent more for teachers as from next year. The 8 percent pay rise as from September already will practically fulfill their demand for 2017.
Of the 8 percent, 6 percent is designated for the base pay and 2 percent for bonuses the payment of which is within the power of head teachers.
($1=24.192 crowns)
