On 24 January, 2014, Maia Kobakhidze addressed the Minister of Education and Science – Tamar Sanikidze, demanding salary increase for teachers:
“As you already know, we regularly hold seminars and meetings with teachers. Compared to last year’s optimism, teachers now express their disappointment for not fulfilling the parliamentary election promises. They are mainly concerned about their tough social conditions and unfair pay policy. This year, teachers could not get 13th month salary either, while in some other governmental institutions employees were given the abovementioned benefit.
According to recent statistics, average salary of public workers is 700 GEL, while average salary of teachers is no more than 350 GEL. And we consider that today is a right time to start talking about increasing teachers’ salaries and improve their social conditions. We believe that we can come up with a long-term strategy that will ensure gradual increase of teachers’ salary for 2-3 consecutive years so that after 3 years it can reach average salary of public workers.
ESFTUG is ready to start dialogue and present its suggestions and opinions to the Ministry upon request.
We express our gratitude towards positive changes in education system but we think that teachers’ society requires more attention or their optimism will be radically altered. We believe that Improving teachers’ social conditions is directly connected to attracting best candidates for teaching positions at schools, which from its side will ensure high quality education.