The government will implement a HUF 400 billion wage improvement for teachers if it succeeds in obtaining the necessary funds from the European Union. According to the plans, the training of teachers will be updated and more money will be provided to support their housing.

It is not just a one-time increase, teachers' wages will also be inflation-adjusted

The government would use EU funds to make teachers' wages inflation-tracking. This is clear from the recently published Human Resources Development Operational Program Plus (EFOP) application, in which the government details the purposes for which it would use the EU funds requested for the period 2021-27.

According to the strategy, the Orbán government would undertake indexation in accordance with the rate of inflation until 2029 in order for the average salary of teachers to reach eighty percent of the average salary of a graduate in Hungary (it is currently 63.5 percent).

The document reveals that the government would allocate 978.7 million euros, or roughly HUF 400 billion, to improve teachers' wages. According to the plans, special attention would be paid to those teachers who deal with disadvantaged children, and additional benefits would be provided to them.

The program also lists additional measures, for example, a

the introduction of the teacher's certificate "which also indicates the prestige of the profession" with the related discount system, the expansion of the range of teacher recognitions that can be donated, and the promotion of their housing - especially for new careers and teaching couples - by creating service apartments. The government wants the measures to make the teaching career more attractive, especially for young people.

In addition to settling salaries, the money would also be used to renew the continuing education system for teachers, and develop new training courses, such as stress management, and training aimed at preventing and recognizing bullying. The goal is also to continue the opportunity-creating measures in more kindergartens and schools than before.

We wrote earlier that teachers' salaries have increased by around fifty percent since the introduction of the career path model in 2013, and in 2020, those working in education received a ten percent increase (thirty percent in vocational training).

In January of this year, salaries in public education were increased by another ten percent, and as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has already reported: next year and in 2024, teachers will definitely receive another ten to ten percent extra money.

Minister Gergely Gulyás recently added to this: if the performance of the economy allows, a higher increase than already promised is also conceivable.

As we reported, since the establishment of the new government, the management of the sector has already negotiated with the teachers' representatives several times, first the State Secretary for Public Education Zoltán Maruzsa sat down with the members of the strike committee formed by the PSZ and PDSZ, then the Minister of the Interior Sándor Pintér received the president of the National Faculty of Pedagogy.

Source: Magyar Hírlap

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