Legitimate grievances among teachers hijacked to serve political interests of opposition groups.Continue reading
The law on the career model for teachers, passed in the summer, has caused a major outcry. Several articles in the opposition media claimed that the law would lead to mass resignations among teachers, making it difficult to start the school year in the autumn. Since then, it has become clear that this is not true and that the mass resignations did not materialize.
Tamás Pilhál’s opinion piece in Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet pointed out that in July, a few days before the adoption of the law on teachers, opposition portal 444.hu, supported by Hungarian billionaire George Soros, published an article, saying that thousands of teachers had announced that they would resign if the law came into force. The article was accompanied by an online collection sheet on which teachers could write their names, schools, and subjects taught.
The list was intended to show the thousands of teachers who would resign in the autumn because of the law.
However, one problem with it was that anyone could put any name on the list without verification. The other was that in the end, only 315 teachers’ names were on it, well short of the many thousands.
The daily working time of teachers is set at eight hours and their teaching time at 24 hours per week. The grades used in the past have been retained and teachers’ salaries have been set in bands. This means that the monthly salary for a trainee teacher is set by government decree, for a grade I teacher between HUF 410,000 (EUR 1,088) and HUF 1,065,000 (EUR 2,827), for a grade II teacher between HUF 430, 000 (EUR 1,141) and HUF 1,135,000 (EUR 3,013), for a master teacher between HUF 520,000 (EUR 1,380) and HUF 1,365,000 (EUR 3,623), and for a research teacher between HUF 640, 000 (EUR 1,699) and HUF 1,470, 000 (EUR 3,902).
Bence Rétvári, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Interior Ministry, told Magyar Nemzet earlier that the trade unions had gone on holiday expecting 5,000 teachers to resign over the summer because of the new law, but out of almost 170,000, only a few hundred had terminated their contracts. Meanwhile, 67 percent more students were admitted to teacher training courses this year than last year, he added; thus the supply of teachers is on course.
Yet the opposition media and their supporters, even abroad, have not spared energy, time, and money to organize protests against the law and rally teachers against the government.
While teachers are indeed being underpaid and the problem needs to be addressed, the related protests quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and bashing of politicians, blurring the lines between the real problem and incitement to change the incumbent Fidesz government.
The government is well aware of the issue with teachers’ salaries and plans to remedy the situation. They are waiting for EU funds to arrive from Brussels that would be used to finance pay raises.
The situation is more complex, however, because these funds are not in near sight yet, with the government advancing the first 10 percent pay increase for teachers at the beginning of this year.
Rétvári pointed out earlier that they are expecting 800 billion forints from the European Union to raise the average salary of teachers, meaning a 75 percent wage increase, resulting in a salary of HUF 800,000 (EUR 2,160) by 2025. The €800 billion scheme for wage increases is currently the largest in the European Union, he stated, adding that the government wants to maintain it until 2030, with domestic funding of 5,600 billion forints (EUR 15.1 billion), thereby preserving the value of wages. However, negotiations are still ongoing with the EU on the funds, with no clear prospect or time frame thus far for the arrival of the money.
Featured photo via Facebook/Tanítanék
