Prague to increase funding for education and take on new school employees

The councilors at the Czech capital have approved a massive contribution to the budget for education in order to meet the needs of teachers

Prague councilors approved this Monday an increase of CZK 300 million in wages for teachers and school staff for 2019. In total, this year Prague will allocate an additional CZK 1 billion for salaries in the education sector, on top of the money provided by the Ministry of Education. The funds will be distributed to schools in two streams - in August and November to be paid to teachers by the principals.

Vít Šimral, Councilor for Education confirmed that this decision of the local council reflected the priorities of the current local coalition, namely education. Apart from the fundamental issue with teacher’s remuneration, many are the forthcoming changes in the field, such as the earmark of special resources for teacher education and strengthening the metropolitan program of teaching foreign languages ​​by native speakers.

The Mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib was clear on the occasion, stating that the Ministry of Education did not take enough account of inter-regional differences in pay levels when distributing money for wages, hence the municipality was obliged to face the challenge by its own means. Only last year the Czech capital supported teachers with additional 100 million CZK for salaries and it was approved that the 100 million budget for school staff will be increased fourfold – with an additional 300 million crowns. The increase should come from the surplus of management. 70% of this amount will be distributed among all school staff so that each employee receives additional funds amounting to approximately twenty thousand. The remaining 30% are to be managed by the principals depending on the respective school's needs.

In the same line of arguments, Deputy Mayor of Finance and Budget Pavel Vyhnánek explained that teachers in the capital receive far below the average salaries for the city: the mean pay of a teacher without subsidies from the city being CZK 33,300 while the average wage in Prague is CZK 41,800. Furthermore, the state in his opinion fails to consider that living costs of teachers in the capital are much higher than elsewhere.

Elementary and nursery schools established by city districts employ 15,500 teachers and other staff, while secondary schools established by the capital have 9,300 employees.