The 800 billion forints expected from the European Union will be used to raise the average salary of teachers.Continue reading
The new law on teachers’ careers, adopted by Parliament on Tuesday, provides for a pay rise, ten weeks’ holiday and a 24-hour working week.
Members of Parliament approved the legislation on teachers’ careers by 134 votes to 60 at the government’s initiative.
Under the law, teachers will be transferred from public servants to public education employees from 1 January 2024, their number of hours will change and a performance-based salary system will be introduced.
The new status of public education employees covers all teachers and other staff directly involved in education, irrespective of their employer. The employment relationship is established by appointment and acceptance of the appointment, and may only be established with a person who has no criminal record, is capable of performing their duties and meets the conditions laid down by government decree.
According to the law, the employer must inform the teacher by 15 September of the change of status at the beginning of next year, and teachers have until 29 September to decide whether to accept it.
Teachers’ strikes have been going on for a long time. Photo via Facebook/PDSZ – Pedagógusok Demokratikus Szakszervezete
In the future, the headquarters of a school district may also instruct a teacher to teach in a school in the same district other than the place of employment specified in the appointment letter, provided that the daily travel time between the new institution and the place of residence does not exceed three hours by public transport. The instruction may last until the end of the school year at the latest.
A teacher raising a young child, or a child alone, a teacher caring for a relative or a teacher who has been diagnosed as having a 50% impairment of health shall not be obliged to work in another place without the consent of the person concerned.
The daily working time of teachers is set at eight hours and their teaching time at 24 hours per week.
Their basic leave is 50 working days per year, of which the employer can take up to 15 working days, for childcare or training.
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).
It has also been specified that a teacher is entitled to an additional teaching hourly rate for permanent substitution.
A new provision is that a teacher working in a beneficiary or catching-up municipality, as well as a teacher whose institution has a proportion of disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged children of up to 10% and runs a development program, will receive a salary increased by 20% of their monthly salary.
The school year shall be a period of at least one hundred and eighty school days from the first working day of September of each year, which may be extended up to 15 July
if, for reasons unforeseeable and unavoidable, the delivery of the subject requirements cannot be ensured during the term.
Teachers have been protesting for months in Hungary, with the initial focus on pay raise. However, both teachers, unions, and students have been voicing various anti-government demands lately.
Via MTI, Featured photo via Facebook/Bólyai Bolyongó
