Hungarian opposition demands reemployment of teachers dismissed in wake of protests

All “illegitimately dismissed” teachers should be reemployed without delay, opposition Democratic Coalition shadow prime minister Klára Dobrev told an online press conference on Friday.

Dobrev also demanded that teachers’ strike rights should be restored and that those rights should be governed by “straightforward” rules. Dobrev called Wednesday’s protests staged by striking teachers and students “uplifting”, adding that her party was preparing an education strategy.

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Balázs Barkóczi, the party’s shadow education minister, called for a pay rise for teachers and said education could not work well without well-paid teachers.

Olga Kálmán, spokesperson of DK’s shadow cabinet, asked if the party supported European Union sanctions on energy, said the Hungarian government had voted for those sanctions. The government’s communications condemning the sanctions against Russia “are therefore meaningless”, she added.