The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) will write to all school district heads to find out how many teachers are missing from Hungarian public education, with a view to working on a solution, a lawmaker of the leftist party told a press conference on Tuesday.
Gergely Arató said all sectors of public education suffer from a shortage of teachers. “This is not a unfortunate happenstance,” he said. “It is the responsibility of the government which stripped teachers of their independence and humiliated them at every turn.” Young teachers are expected to teach children for as little as 130,000-140,000 forints a month (EUR 399.5-430.2), he added.
Govt to Raise Teachers’ Wages to Keep Them in the Profession
At a separate press conference, Bence Rétvári, a state secretary of the human resources ministry, said that the 2020 budget will boost funding for education as well as for family subsidies, health care and pensions. Funds allocated for education were 645 billion forints higher in 2019 than in 2010, with a further raise of tens of billions of forints scheduled in 2020, he said.
Featured photo by Zoltán Balogh/MTI