Párbeszéd wants recognition and remuneration for teachers worthy of their positions, and it wants humane schools for children, the spokesman for the opposition party said at an online press conference on Sunday.
On the occasion of Teachers’ Day, Richárd Barabás acknowledged teachers for meeting the challenge of switching to digital instruction during the novel coronavirus epidemic and for conducting matriculation exams that the government had “left them on their own” to do.
The government has started transforming the education system without the involvement of teachers, he said. Instead of the National Core Curriculum and poorly written regulations, Párbeszéd wants an education system in which teachers are well prepared and are paid and acknowledged in a manner befitting the status of their positions, he added.
Párbeszéd recommends a 50 percent pay rise for teachers and the introduction of sabbaticals, Barabás said.
Government initiatives to place guards in schools and to make suspending monthly family subsidies a sanction do not serve the interest of education or children and “may be illegal”, too, he added.
He said Hungary needs the kinds of schools in which social problems that lead to violence in schools can be addressed at “grassroots level”.