Steven N.Péter Horváth, President of the National Teachers’ Corps (NPK), believes that the teaching profession is in a dreadful state of affairs in Hungary. Horváth told Inforádió that Hungary’s most critical need is for science and IT teachers, but there is little hope of improvement in this area anytime soon.
The situation is not much better regarding chemistry and physics, as the average age of those teachers is high and there are virtually no younger teachers expected to take their place. Horváth speculated that the teacher shortage was around 10,000-12,000 teachers at the start of the year, and bemoaned the fact that many Hungarians with teaching degrees do not remain in their profession.
Horváth thinks that a 10% salary increase by the government is far too low, as the profession cannot keep teachers from leaving to other fields at such low wages, but a salary increase of 100% would definitely make the field competitive. A Hungarian teacher, he claims, does not even reach the country’s average monthly salary of 440,000 Forints until they are 61 years old. [Inforádió]
