Teacher Pay

UP IN THE AIR AND SURREAL

TEACHERS' PAY

By Stephen Wilson

Russian teachers like American are under increased pressure to perform.

             I was going on an errand as my eye caught a peculiar poster. It was no

             ordinary poster. It was not just another poster encouraging people to

             vote in choosing  Moscow's mayor in the impending election due on

             the 9th September. The poster showed brokers dawning bowler hats

             and business suits, all identical, floating in the air. It reminded you of

             a surreal painting by either Chagall or Dali. But this poster perhaps best

             sums up the unreal atmosphere in which this election is being conducted

             and how people are often floating through life in some kind of trance

             or living in castles in the air. At first I thought it was an advertisement for

             Hugo Boss suits or simply new suits. But then I noticed below an appeal

             to vote.

             But the unreality of this poster is matched by the hype used to promote

             the Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. In one brochure all kinds of unsubstantiated

             and inflated claims have been made . For instance, the average school

             teacher in Moscow monthly salary rose from 39,000 rubles in 2010, to

             70,000 rubles in 2013 to 90,000 in 2018. The leading local education

             official claims it is even bigger citing a staggering 110, 000 rubles. So

             which is the actual figure-  90,000 or 110,000?  Or do men in Hugo

             Boss suits float around in the air? In fact, none of those figures are

             correct as average salaries often conceal more than they reveal. The

             picture is a lot more complex than even we first thought. Second City

             Teacher made some inquiries and came across a music teacher who

             was working a full time job and receiving 35,000 rubles. One teacher,                

             who refuses to be named, and knows a lot of teachers who work full

             time, believes a more accurate monthly figure is somewhere between

             60,000 and 70,000 rubles. But even this figure doesn't do justice to

             vast pay differentials between teachers who claim they receive far

             less. And often those teachers who obtain this 60,000 rubles are

             not working the minimum 18 hour 'stavka' or full time schedule, but

             the equivalent of two stavkas. In other words, they are effectively

             doing two full-time jobs!  Oksana Chebotareva recently met a

             school teacher, Olga, who claimed to earn 90,000 rubles a month

             in Moscow . "She told me she had to work very long hours for this

             salary. But she has to do a lot of paperwork, preparation and reports."

             When we go beyond Moscow a more complex picture emerges. For

             example, in the Samarskoi   region of Russia officials claim that teachers

             earn 30,000 rubles a month. Yet a teacher of Social Knowledge, in a rural

             village states : "They claim that the average pay of a teacher is 30,000

             rubles but this untrue . A full time job amounts to 18 hours . There is a

             pay rise out of the school budget . But how can you achieve this ? You

             get this extra rise out of the success of students taking Olympiads and high

             quality scientific work undertaken by students under the supervision of

             teachers . But some of this high quality work goes unrewarded. I do 14

             hours and receive 15,000 rubles plus a rise leaves me with 19 to 20,000

             rubles. ... They will give you a rise for half a year and afterwards none.

             Attaining 30,000 rubles can only be done by doing two jobs. But this is

             physically hard and the quality of preparing for lessons suffers."

             Natalie , a teacher of Russian from Samara stated : " Young teachers

             are running away from schools . Why do such work when a higher

             ranking experienced teacher only receives 20,000 rubles even with

             extra lessons ? In order to earn your living, you need to do around two

             full time jobs - not 18 , but 28-30 hours ".

             According to some estimates, a rural 

             teacher can earn from 9,000 to 13,000 rubles a month.

             But if the salaries of school teachers are rising then this is not translated

             by increasing satisfaction. On the contrary, a recent survey undertaken

             by Rosstat found that while in 2014, 53.2 % of teachers expressed

             dissatisfaction with their salaries, in 2016 this rose to 65.3% .            

             The reasons for this are not hard to find. The rise in teachers' pay has

             come at a dreadful price. Because some parents believe that the

             teachers are well-paid, they expect them to vastly improve the performance

             of their children. Highly unrealistic expectations are placed on teachers.

             Classes can be taken from a young teacher on the whim of a complaining

             parent. It is as if a consumer model of education has arisen. Instead of

             the consumer is always right, the parent is always right. A teacher of

             Russian Natalyia stated: "Earlier, parents were the first assistants of

             class management. Now a new generation of parents has grown up

             who see the role of teacher as an educational servant, forgetting they

             are not in the private sector but in a state school. All kinds of invented

             complaints are sent to the administration and above".

             Russian teachers have never been under more pressure. They have

             to work more hours, do more paper work, face more complaints from

             parents who are assumed to be always right, and teach pupils who

             are also stressed out because they have virtually no free time. And

             the curriculum is constantly changing . One history textbook which

             history teachers were using can suddenly be removed to be replaced

             by a new one. This means all the existing history textbooks which

             have been used are simply thrown away even if they are reasonable.

             A student of history is expected to learn, in detail, not just the history

             of early Russia, but all the periods up to the 21st century and be able

             to answer complex questions in the Unitary State Exam on why this

             particular Russian white army lost a battle in the Russian Civil War.

             School students don't have that much time to cram all those facts

             into their brain. Many of them are under pressure to learn two foreign

             languages as well as daunting equations in mathematics which are

             at times, more appropriate for university students.

             If teachers do receive 'higher pay' rises it comes at a price of virtually

             being deprived of free time not to mention the negation of their

             authority in the classroom by all kinds of officials, parents and

             vested interests. Now if a teacher could soar away into the sky without

             falling he might just do it!

             I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Journal Russian Reporter

             who did a brilliant investigation into the pay and conditions of Russian

             school teachers. { issue 17,{456} 27 August - 10 September 2018

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