Even in international comparison, Hungarian university lecturers work for embarrassingly low salaries «Mérce
The amount that university lecturers earn in Hungary can also be calculated in an international comparison. The salaries of both in-service teachers and university teachers with many years of experience are among the lowest in the European Union, writes the Transparent.
In Hungary, at the current exchange rate of the euro, a teaching assistant earns 615 euros and a university teacher earns roughly 1,500 euros gross. This puts Hungary at the bottom of the list.
The Transparent According to his collection, I am also looking for more teaching assistants in Bulgaria (€ 665), Romania (€ 875) and Croatia (more than € 1,000), who tend to be in the lowest salary category in all countries. In Estonia, Greece or Portugal, teaching assistants are paid twice as much as in Hungary, Malta, three times as much, in Slovenia or Austria, four times as much, and in Finland, Germany or the Netherlands, five times as much as in Hungary.
However, it is not only the salaries of beginning university teachers that are disgraceful when compared to the salaries of other countries.
University teachers who have been on the field for many years earn less than Hungary (1538 euros) only in Bulgaria (1053 euros). In Romania, a regular university professor earns 1,626 euros, and in Lithuania, he already earns nearly 2,000 euros. University teachers earn 3,000 euros in Greece, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, 4,590 euros in Slovenia and almost 8,000 euros in Austria.
By comparison, this amount averages € 5,395 in the EU and € 2,400 in the Visegrad Four countries.
The Transparent one he wrote about it in his earlier published writingthat nearly 40 percent of Hungarian universities employ faculty without pay. This may also be due to the general shortage of teachers due to low salaries. One university, employing one of 20 teachers for free, argued that the basis of volunteering was a close scientific-research relationship with the person or their organization (employer).
The model has changed, autonomy has fallen
As of August 1, the majority of Hungarian universities are no longer under state maintenance. With the exception of five (ELTE, BME, National University of Public Service, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Academy of Music), all universities were transferred to foundations.
The government justified the decision by saying that the so-called through the change of model, universities will be given more freedom of movement and university lecturers will receive a salary increase.
Amendments to the Model Change Act require a two-thirds majority, so possible revocation or even restructuring of the model change will present serious difficulties.
The amount for the model change is no longer included in the recovery plan submitted to parliament in May. Although it contained a passage on the “sectoral modernization of higher education training”, it is only a part of the support package requested for a competitive workforce, totaling only HUF 281 billion of the total fund. This, although it would partly cover the costs of the university’s transformation, does not come close to the HUF 1,500 billion development funding announced by the government and cited as the reason for the foundation model.
The European Union has not yet adopted the recovery plan in Hungary.
(Transparent, Yard)
Cover image: Fortepan