On Teachers' Salaries

The "money follows the pupil" reform created a situation where in Riga a teacher's salary for a full load is ~450 lats (640 EUR), but in a remote rural school only 320 EUR. As recently as 2012, Riga's teachers received "supplements" of 50 lats (70 EUR). In principle, nothing prevents other municipalities from making such supplements (Sigulda, Cēsis, etc.). A full load is 21 contact hours per week. Class tutoring adds ~4 hours. For marking homework, little - at best +0.2 hours on top of the actual lesson hours. In any case, it is not the case that marking homework goes entirely unpaid.

Then there is another reform - "teacher quality grade". There are five such grades in total, with the fifth being the highest. Teachers awarded grade 3 receive a supplement of 31.87 EUR, while those with grade 5 already receive 99.60 EUR.

Until recently (is it still the case?) there was a European Social Fund project "Promoting Teacher Competitiveness in Conditions of Educational System Optimisation", which gave teachers who attained quality grade 4 an 8% supplement, and grade 5 - 12%.

There is also another "trick" with unused hours. It works roughly as follows: the plan provides for x hours of subject y. Since there is no teacher, but the annual budget has been approved, these requested but unused hours can be distributed at the end of the year.

Deputy principals, methodologists and department heads. These are mostly the same teachers, just with additional responsibilities and naturally - salary. The salary depends on the number of pupils. I did not find the figures, but they could be in the range of 700–800 EUR. There are usually several deputies: for educational work, for pastoral work, for IT matters, for administrative work, etc. Department heads are technical staff - for example, the gym manager - so their salary is lower, but no teaching qualification is needed. To ensure as many staff as possible receive "a share", these loads are distributed among multiple employees. For example, part of the deputy principal's load for IT matters is assigned to the administrative clerk.

Optional classes. If a school has two maths teachers but only one and a half loads' worth of hours, the missing half-load can be "bolted on" to the number of optional hours. These may be the same kind of lessons as any other, or consultations can be "tucked in".

A long time ago there was such a position as laboratory technician, which seems to have disappeared. When it still existed, it was a technical position whose salary differed little from that of a cleaner, so often it was not a separate person who was hired but one of the existing staff.

Support funds and motivation programmes. If a school is fortunate enough to have particularly resourceful parents, a school support fund can be established under the school's auspices into which parents contribute on a voluntarily compulsory basis. The use of this money is not particularly controlled. Principals generally tend not to interfere unnecessarily, but do not refrain from offering their noble advice on how the money would be best spent.

The purpose of this article is to show that teachers' salaries are far from consisting only of a base salary, as is often presented by the media and by teachers themselves. I have no idea which of these calculations are still in force and which overlap; it is quite possible that somewhere pre-tax and post-tax figures have been confused. The confusion is further compounded by the fact that some things are paid from the state budget (remuneration for teaching subjects), while others come from the local authority (supplements, optional classes, clubs).

There is one more thing that goes unspoken. The idea of 21 contact hours came about with the thought that the teacher works 4 days of 5 hours each, with one day as a "library day". With the calculation that the school day ends around one or two in the afternoon. If a teacher works one and a half or two loads, this does not happen only at the cost of the free day, but noticeably extends the school day, as a result of which lessons end at four o'clock or later.

It is wonderful that a teacher can work multiple loads and earn more, but by allowing a situation where almost all teachers work more than one load, another risk exists: if a teacher falls ill, it is practically impossible to cover such a large number of lessons. Moreover, when working multiple loads, it is not hard to imagine that there is simply no time left for consultations. These are scheduled early in the morning, before eight o'clock, which in principle means no one comes to them.

An average-sized school of ~1,000 pupils has 1 principal, ~6 deputies, ~100 teachers and ~15 technical staff.