Teachers are always the most important and useful resource in every educational establishment. It is impossible to deliver high-quality education without instructors who are committed to their work, who have received adequate training, and who are eager to cooperate. When it comes to the salaries of teachers, the government should ensure that the teaching profession is always filled with capable university graduates and prevent good teachers from leaving the teaching field to work in the service or manufacturing industries where their skills and experience can result in much higher pay. In addition, the government should ensure that the teaching profession is always filled with capable university graduates. Teachers need to be ensured that their work is needed, and that their students will not go for buying term papers online.
Additional research demonstrates that higher teacher wages help to improve learning outcomes; however, some of the conditions for this to be true are hazy and must be satisfied, such as the fact that an increase in teacher pay does not lead to a reduction in the availability of other school resources. The pay scale for educators. Higher teacher wages in the United States are linked to improved student performance on external examinations, lower dropout rates, and greater levels of teachers participating in the labour market, including their entry into and duration of service, mobility, and absenteeism. In addition, higher teacher wages are associated with greater levels of teachers participating in the labour market. When educators leave their jobs, not only is there a loss of expertise and human capital, but there is also an increase in the cost of recruiting and training new educators. This is because the salaries paid to professors are very important to the overall performance of educational institutions.
Decentralization of education
Since education is decentralised in Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland, and since the local governments are responsible for managing education and money, teacher salaries are handled at the local level in those three countries. Therefore, the structure of the municipal governments in all three countries has a substantial influence on the educational system.
Poland’s population density is significantly higher than that of neighbouring countries such as Estonia and Lithuania, which are both relatively small countries with a significant part of their total population living in their respective capital cities. Poland has an annual gross domestic product (GDP) per capita that is around 10 percent lower than that of its neighbours Estonia and Lithuania.
While Estonia and especially Lithuania spend less on education than the rest of the EU, Poland spends approximately the same amount as the rest of the EU. There is little doubt that the rise in teachers’ average wages is to blame because they are the major driver of the growth in educational spending.
As can be seen in the following three case studies, the majority of public schools, including the teaching staff, are sponsored and overseen by the respective local governments. In Poland and Estonia, respectively, there has been a recent proliferation of art schools as well as expansive agricultural vocational schools. In addition, the governments of Estonia and Lithuania have each created a number of unique educational opportunities for their respective populations by founding a variety of special schools. These examples only cover a small fraction of the total number of national education systems.
Educational achievements
To begin, it is essential to emphasise that the improvement in the quality of education indicated by worldwide rankings is the direct result of all of the educational reforms, changes in curriculum, adaptations of teaching approaches, and student motivation that have been implemented. Changes in teacher compensation have minimal impact on student learning in the short term, but over the long term, they have the potential to affect the proportion of individuals who choose to become or remain in the teaching profession.
PISA, PIRLS, and TIMMS are the three programmes that are used to evaluate students on a global scale. PISA is the only test on which we disclose Estonia’s results because the country did not take part in either PIRLS or TIMMS. Since Estonia and Lithuania started taking part in PISA in 2009, the whole set of data from that assessment, which spans from 2009 to 2018, is now available.
Teachers’ salaries and teaching time
A publication of the European Union called Eurydice gives statistics on the salaries of teachers and administrators in the many countries that make up the EU (EC 2020). Only in Poland can a person’s level of education determine how much they would make in their first year on the job. Because to the restrictions in the surrounding area, secondary school teachers receive a higher salary. A comparison of the two graphs shown above indicates another important fact: Poland has the highest rate of income progression from beginning instructors to seasoned educators as they near the end of their employment. In spite of the fact that Poland has a lower starting wage than both Estonia and Lithuania, the average yearly compensation in Poland is significantly higher than the combined total of those two countries’ salaries. This is a reflection of the vast salary discrepancies that exist between different types of instructors at different points of their careers.
Departure from the betting system
Both Estonia and Lithuania were a part of the Soviet Union and as a result inherited the Soviet system of teacher pay in 1990, which was referred to as the betting system. This differentiates them from Poland in this regard.
According to the rate system, the primary criterion that determines how much teachers are paid is the quantity of work that is required of them each week (and some other factors, such as the number of student notebooks checked by the teacher). Therefore, the salary that teachers receive is extremely unpredictable from one year to the next; as a result, teachers’ freedom of action is substantially constrained. The betting method has garnered significant interest from members of the scientific community. A beneficial aspect of the betting system has been uncovered with regard to the number of hours spent educating. There is mounting evidence that the compensation system is contributing to a decline in the overall quality of education:
- The rate structure throughout the area results in a fragmented teacher’s compensation with a relatively low base wage, several allowances and raises, the majority of which contribute very little to the overall salaries of instructors, and a great deal of variety.
- There is no transparency and no predictability about salary,
- Teachers are searching for job outside of school because the income is unappealing for young instructors (it is low for primary teachers),
- Teachers are looking for work because it is unpleasant for experienced teachers (they reach a limit in 15-20 years), and (seasonal admission, teaching is not a priority),
- Teachers are looking for additional lessons, which can sometimes lead to a very long working week (teaching other subjects, competitions for extra hours);
- Schools hold “strategic vacancies” and use funds from them to increase the salaries of employed teachers.
- Teachers are seeking payment from parents (private tutoring of their own students, gifts from parents);
- Schools hold “strategic vacancies” and use funds from them to increase the salaries of employed teachers.
