The salaries of Ukrainian teacher in 2017 will grow by a third due to a promotion in the rate scale of wages of public servants, the Minister of Education and Science Lilia Hrynevych said in a release posted 19 September on the ministry's website.
According to her, all the teaching staff, who are currently placed between 8 and 12 ranks, have to go two categories up the wage rate scale.
"The policy will make it possible to raise the salary of school teachers by 500 to 800 hryvnya. In parallel there will be an increase in the minimum salaries to all state employees. Altogether, teachers' salaries are bound to increase by about a third next year," the statement reads.
The minister believes that the salary rise must be accompanied by an ongoing improvement in the qualifications of teachers.
"We must motivate the best educators to make them the agents of change, and I am talking about the voluntary certification of teachers. We have to put new demands on the teaching methods for the process to give a boost to efficiency and quality of education of children," Hrynevych wrote.
The draft national budget for 2017 provides for an increase in education spending at 21.1bn hryvnia to 145.1bn compared with the state budget-2016.