Education and Science, Financial Services, Latvia, Wages

Seile has promised do everything in her power in order to increase salaries at least for those teachers who currently earn the least. The minister says in the interview that there are significant differences between various teachers – teachers who work in small schools receive very low salaries, while teachers in large schools earn between EUR 700 and EUR 1,000 a month. At the same time, neither teachers, nor the Education and Science Ministry knows how these salaries are arrived at, as the funding goes to municipalities which then distribute them as they please.

The minister believes that young teachers ought to receive salaries that would be on par with the medium monthly salary in Latvia – about EUR 775 before taxes.

Seile said that the new government has rejected the idea to introduce state-funded education that would be provided in Latvian language because, as the minister believes, the current bilingual education system is good enough. Instead, the country will attempt to introduce the bilingual system in Russian-language kindergartens to make sure that children can learn Latvian in pre-school.