The youth arm of the teachers’ union started a Facebook campaign that puts teachers’ problems in context. It also illustrates why teaching is an embarrassing profession these days and why people flock the field (and the country).

We are back in the age when the practitioners of certain professions are expected to be of independent means or sit on a family trust if they are to make a living despite their low salaries. Except this time it is not (just) prestige professions like university professors and scientists who tended to come from well-off families in the 19th century. This time it is the backbone of society, teachers and nurses, who are informally expected to ‘have husbands’ as a minister put it – i.e. to make money elsewhere because in their chosen profession they never will.

So after years of education the educators of of the next generation end up in jobs they are required to

• slavishly follow state-mandated curricula and
• lead humiliating, minute-by-minute journals on top of their workload to
• prove they have followed the nationalist agenda to the letter, where they are
• forced to work overtime and cover for any class for entire school years even if they are not qualified because
• there aren’t enough teachers in any school, and where they are
• under the thumbs of headmasters who are political appointees, often against the express wishes of parents and teachers, or despite criminal background or lack of qualifications.

But at least these teachers are also underpaid. (The photos below are from the teachers’ union’s Facebook.)

436 euros a month after 4 years of university and 4 years of experience (left) and 454 euros a month after 3 years of experience

From top left: 436 euros, 500 a month, 503 a month, 454 a month, 441 a month, 790 a month after 35 years

Divide by 330 if you want the euro sum

The assistant (bottom left) makes 251 euros a month after 35 years in the job. To quote the minister “don’t they have husbands?” 

And these are all government-set salaries. A fraction of the sport budget would fix this problem and make these people stop leaving the profession (and the country). Instead, Orbán spends some more of taxpayer money on subsidized loans for them to be able to live somewhere (but only if they are eligible for loans…) – but he demands more children from them in exchange. So enslavement at the highest possible cost to the taxpayer, the economy, and the victims of these baby-loans – not to mention the opportunity cost to lives wasted in struggle.

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