Prime Minister Edi Rama today announced a 7% pay rise for teachers at a direct communication with schoolteachers in Tirana. Accompanied by the Minister of Education, Evis Kushi, the Premier outlined details of the government plan for an overall increase of monthly wages in the country’s public sector, focusing also on the planned increase for teachers.

“We are here today for a very important issue that has also been part of our discussion, namely the pay rise issue. We have been discussing, debating, but we have agreed on one point; teachers deserve receiving much higher wages. They deserve not only dignity, but also to receive higher wages. So we are here to give good news today. You know that the teachers’ wages rose 32% during our first term in office. At the beginning of this term, we pledged to increase wages by 40% and we started immediately in the first year by introducing a 6% increase, and a second increase by 7% this year. But our ambition is much bigger than that,” the Education Minister Evis Kushi said.

The government head said that the wage increase will take place in two stages, with an initial 7% increase and the next step, due to be taken next year, the teachers’ wages will be taken to a whole new level.

“We came here to informally communicate this decision in person, because you happen to hear and see all sorts of rumours and speculations. I am referring to all of those who can’t resist using the electronic devices and come across all sorts of speculations that lead to more disinformation. However, you have definitely heard that the government has decided to introduce a significant pay rise for the public sector workers, a decision that has been actually made based on the fact that we can now afford doing so, and we couldn’t do it previously, regardless of our desire to do so.

Of course, your category of workers has always been on our constant attention and you have benefited from constant pay increase, compared to where we started from, but we have always wished to do a lot more and utmost efforts have been made to create the opportunity and to afford such a decision because, after all, this is not just a matter of desire, but it is a matter of opportunities and wages can be increased, not because you wish to do so, but because you can afford doing so and so that you keep that increase unchanged. This is because the pay rise cannot happen for a month only, but it is a permanent decision and it means that you should have built the right capacities to correctly honour the contract and this can be done through the increase of economic opportunities.

We have drafted a two-stage plan, which is set to kick off now and will conclude next year so that we can deliver on this targeted pay rise. You know quite well that a 7% wage rise had been planned for teachers, doctors and health professionals and we will deliver on this pledge now. And we will then take the next step – and this is not a promise, but a financial plane – and your wages will be taken to a whole new level next year. So if we plan a monthly increase by 3584 lek for wages of the nine-year schoolteachers, and an increase by 3843 lek for wages of secondary schoolteachers and 5800 lek for school principals, once the second leg of this process completes the nine-year schoolteachers will receive a monthly wage of 95 550 lek, high school teachers will receive 106 800 lek. Of course, I am talking about the basic monthly wage, as the salary level will be higher depending on seniority, qualifications and job position.

I think this is a significant and satisfactory wage increase, almost twice higher than the monthly wages you used to receive when we embarked together on this endeavour, when we encountered countless problems in the process. But we can openly state today that we have ushered in a new phase in all aspects of the state’s financial parameters. It is important that we introduce significant pay rise, but cutting the public debt as well. In the meantime, be sure that this salary increase will bring more motivation, more dedication to everyone’s work.

It will also attract the private sector too, because it should definitely reconsider its position, because the new wage levels become totally competitive with the private sector and everyone else,” PM Edi Rama said.