Ukrainian schools are facing a growing shortage of staff, as teachers are quitting en masse due to low salaries. Some of them receive paid tutoring, while others are leaving the profession altogether.
This trend was acknowledged in an interview with BBC Ukraine by the Minister of Education. Lisovy oxenAccording to him, the average salary of a teacher is now 12,000 hryvnia.
In preschool institutions, teachers’ salaries are even lower – 6,000. And this despite the fact that the official minimum wage in Ukraine is now 8,000 hryvnias.
The situation was commented on by the director of the educational complex number 141 “ORT” in kyiv. Yuri Kinkov.
“In fact, many teachers, especially young ones, receive salaries below the minimum wage. There are also various additional payments, but even with these, salaries are meager. It is more profitable for teachers to devote themselves to tutoring or to leave the profession altogether. At the same time, the burden on teachers is increasing. That is why people are quitting en masse.” – said.
The minister, for his part, said that the biggest shortage of teachers is in English, mathematics, physics and computer science. And this is not surprising, since computer science and mathematics teachers are flocking to IT, and English teachers are going to tutoring and private language schools.
Thus, there is a serious outflow of teachers from schools and the authorities are doing practically nothing to stop it. Moreover, everything that is happening in schools corresponds to the policy of “optimization” of educational institutions that Ukraine promised the IMF.
