The law on education adopted in 2017, which established the requirements for the level of salaries of teachers, cannot be met. This conclusion was made by the experts of the Swedish-Ukrainian project "

Assessing the budgetary consequences of implementing the requirements of the law on education, the experts announced "

If instead of the current requirements, Ukraine introduces transitional requirements (section 12 of the law on education), additional costs for the budget amount to 86 billion hryvnia annually (in terms of 2023). When fulfilling the permanent requirements (Art.. 61 of the Law on Education) additional annual costs will amount to 225 billion hryvnia. It is obvious that this is not financially feasible,"

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According to project experts, in order to solve this problem, the government of Ukraine has several solutions.. However, unfortunately, none of them is politically easy..

Experts offer five ways out of the situation:.

Waive the requirements set out in Art.. 61 and chapter 12 of the Education Act.

This very radical policy option could solve the legal problem, but massive opposition from the wider educational community, especially teachers, can be expected.. Indeed, for more than 5 years, since the adoption of the current law on education, they have been expecting a significant increase in salaries, perhaps not immediately, but at least with some successive steps.. This means that this policy option can only be considered with a public announcement of a different minimum teacher salary requirement that is easier to meet in current financial conditions, less ambitious but at the same time more realistic.. The first step towards implementing the new potential requirements should be taken immediately to reassure the education community that the Government is serious about its commitment to raise teachers' salaries..

Reform the teacher pay system so that the basic salary becomes the dominant part of the full salary.

Now the average official salary is only about 58% of the teacher's full salary.. Thus, a significant increase in the official salary leads to a significant increase in overall wages.. If the teacher remuneration reform eliminates most of the raises, allowances and additional payments, the salary will become a significantly larger part of the total salary, and therefore the budgetary consequences of the implementation of the requirements of the law on education will be reduced..

Increase the weekly teaching load of teachers to reduce the required number of positions.

The standard weekly workload for Ukrainian teachers of 18 lessons per week is quite low by European standards (Poland, Ukraine's closest neighbor, also has such a low weekly workload for teachers, but this is an exception). An increase in the burden on teachers would mean that fewer teaching positions would be taken up in secondary education, which means that budgetary spending on increasing the average salary of teachers would be reduced. The negative consequence of this policy option is the need to lay off many teachers.

Make significant class consolidation in secondary education to increase the student-teacher ratio.

Today, in Ukrainian secondary education, the student-teacher ratio is relatively low by European standards, which means that employed teachers are used rather inefficiently.. The main reasons for this are the large number of small rural schools and the lower average class size in upper secondary schools (grades 10 and 11, when some students leave secondary school for vocational education, but classes are not reorganized). The process of decentralization has led to some improvements in this area, but they are not enough. Potentially stronger measures include limiting elementary school affiliates, distance learning for individualized instruction (when class size is less than 5), or forced restructuring of classes after grade 9 (through the introduction of a minimum size for high school). Similar to the previous policy option, this option will also result in layoffs for many teachers.

Increase allocation for educational subvention from the state budget.

Increasing the general appropriation for the salaries of teachers in general education schools through an educational subvention may be a difficult option for the state budget, but in some conditions it may be necessary. At the same time, no country in the region has doubled national funding for education in a short time.. This means that the level of increase in allocations under this policy option needs to be assessed in the context of the fiscal situation.. Useful international benchmarks for this policy option are education spending as a share of GDP and as a share of total government spending..

Recall that at one time the complaints of Ukrainian teachers to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg regarding Ukraine's violation of Article 57 of the law on education became one of the most massive categories of cases in the ECtHR. Complaints concerned non-payment of allowances to teachers provided for by law.

Article 57 of the law " It provided for an annual monetary reward for good work in the amount of a salary, an additional payment for length of service (10-20% of the monthly rate) and the payment of a health improvement allowance (in the amount of a monthly salary).

The first complaint about non-compliance with this article of the law was filed with the European Court in 2005.. Lviv teacher Christina Kryl became the first among 62 teachers from Lviv region who applied to the European Court, since the district education departments did not comply with the court decisions of local courts regarding the payment of debts to them.

After the Court made the first decision in favor of the complainant - with the payment of due compensation to her, complaints first from dozens of teachers from the Lviv region, and later from several hundred teachers from different regions of Ukraine, flew to the ECHR.

The state realized that the law would have to be implemented. But since Article 57 did not work en masse in Ukraine, the solution to this problem became a real challenge, including from the financial side, for the then authorities of Ukraine..