An increase in young teachers’ salaries by 20 % from the beginning of September has been announced by the Minister of Education and Science Przemysław Czarnek. “From 1 September 2022, the average salary of a beginning teacher will be PLN 4,432.15. This is an increase of PLN 738.69” said the head of the ministry at a press briefing on teacher vacancies and salaries.

Minister Czarnek stressed that the increases were possible thanks to a law that was passed at the last session of the Sejm after the Senate’s amendments were rejected.

The head of the Ministry of Education and Science (MEiN) announced a simplification of professional promotion, including a two-year shortening of the progression to the rank of appointed teacher and an increase in the average salary of a contract teacher by 8 %, or PLN 332.41. The average salary of an appointed teacher will be PLN 5,318.58, while the salary of a certified teacher from 1 September 2022 will be PLN 6,795.97.

Przemysław Czarnek informed during the briefing that on 8 August, the websites of the school superintendents’ offices contained information about 13,329 vacancies for teachers’ positions. As he stipulated, this data changes from day to day.

According to the head of the Ministry of Education, this is a normal staff movement – in 2019 at this time of year, there were 12,301 vacancies.

“If we count 12-13,000 against 700,000 teachers in Poland, it is more or less as if there is a shortage of one teacher in a school that employs 50 teachers”, Minister Czarnek said. He added that the government mobilised 520 million PLN for additional 18,000 new posts for specialists – psychologists, child psychologists, speech therapists, and pedagogues.

Asked about the words of school principals who claim that the number of vacancies is underestimated, Czarnek replied that he knows school principals from various provinces who have no staffing problems at school.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński