Education Minister positive about salary increases

Teachers' salaries should rise regularly during the whole government term. The Education Minister Peter Plavčan said this after his Tuesday meeting with the Economy minister Peter Kažimír. Nevertheless, he did not specify the increase. According to him, the exact figure will be a topic of coalition discussions as well as its inclusion into the Government Manifesto. Slovak teachers marched through the streets in several Slovak towns on Tuesday. They wanted to repeatedly draw the attention to their demands from the pre-election period. The financial commitments of the Cabinet regarding education being included in the Manifesto were still not yet detailed even after Monday's meeting of Education Minister Peter Plavčan and 20 representatives of professional regional education organisations. The Education Minister didn't disclose the sums he would request for his portfolio. According to Education and Science Labour Union Association chairman Pavel Ondek, the Government Manifesto remains only in the form of vaguely outlined plans for the moment. "There's no specificity yet, but as we went item by item, the progress was plain to see", he said. For instance, the document proposes to allocate at least 6 percent of GDP to education by the end of 2020 and increase teacher salaries to at least 80 percent of salaries enjoyed by other university-educated employees. Therefore, the salaries of educators and teachers are to rise as of January 1, 2017 by 25 percent and subsequently 10 percent annually until 2020.