(source: TASR)
Altogether 2,216 teachers from 164 schools plan to attend the second day of the gradual strike to be held on September 21, the Initiative of Slovak Teaches (ISU) informed on its website.
The first event on September 13 was attended by 1,773 teachers from 106 schools of all types. This is, however, only a small number as there are about 89,000 teachers at more than 2,900 kindergartens, 2,100 primary schools and 860 secondary schools in Slovakia, the TASR newswire reported.
The plan is not to teach during the first two lessons.
The dissatisfied teachers ask the government and the parliament to secure the hike in the salaries in the whole education sector by €140 per month this year and by €90 as of 2017. They also ask to reassess the credit system of teachers and increase the budget for the education sector by €400 million to alleviate the differences in equipment of schools.
If the problems are not solved, ISU plans to continue the strike on September 29, by not teaching during the first three lessons, TASR wrote.
Education Minister Peter Plavčan responded by saying that they already increased the salaries in September.
“The first two laws approved by the parliament concerned the education sector, and one of them focused on hiking teachers’ salaries in which we want to continue as it is part of the programme statement of the government,” he said last week, as quoted by TASR.
He also claimed he plans to meet with Finance Minister Peter Kažimír (Smer) to hike the salaries as of 2017.
