In Hungary, the gap between the average wage in the private sector and the average teacher’s salary is bigger than in any other EU member state.
ADVERTISEMENTHungarian teachers are posting their salary, education and years spent teaching to Instagram, to protest about the poor pay.
In Hungary, the gap between the average wage in the private sector and the average teacher’s salary is bigger than in any other EU member state.
Young teachers only earn around €500 per month. Balazs Dvoracsko, the head of the Teacher’s Union Youth Organisation, who is also a special education teacher, told Euronews: “The rent and the overheads take half of my salary. It is hard to imagine how I would start a family or raise children in a few years’ time.”
In 2013 the Fidesz government created a system to raise the salaries in public education following upgrades to the minimum wage. This was widely welcomed in the sector but the initiative was dropped a year later.
Because of the issues over low pay, the job is not attractive to younger people.
Less than 3,000 newly graduated teachers start working in the country every year, while 5,000 teachers retire. If that trend continues the current total number of teachers could be halved in the next 15 years.