Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov acknowledged that teachers in Russia earn little. He also stated that this problem arose from policies implemented in the 1990s, and although more than 30 years have passed, the consequences are still being felt. "Yes, we have problems with salaries, with differentiation; this is also an echo of the 1990s. We have schools located nearby, but teachers receive different salaries," Kravtsov said, according to TASS.

The minister assured that support mechanisms are already being developed and urged teachers to wait, as this process requires considerable time. "This requires a lot of work, and we know the relevant solutions... We would like it to be faster, but for technical reasons, it's not always possible," he concluded. According to Rosstat, the average salary in the education sector is 68,245 rubles per month, 30% lower than the national average of 96,255 rubles per month.

According to a study by the "Teacher" trade union, in 73 regions of the country, school teachers receive salaries below the minimum wage of 22,440 rubles, which is even lower than the average prison salary of 33,000 rubles. Meanwhile, the teacher shortage is approximately 250,000, and a third (31%) of teachers are aged 50 and over.

Due to the teacher shortage, classes are either cancelled or taught by teachers in other specialties. As a result, school staff are forced to work one and a half to two times more than they should, and recent graduates of teacher training colleges are leaving the profession due to overwhelming workloads and low salaries, according to Vsevolod Lukhovitsky, deputy chairman of the trade union.

Boris Ilyukhin, a senior research fellow at the Center for Continuous Education Economics at RANEPA, also noted that young teachers often have to work two jobs to earn above the regional average.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/wXYfX