Lázár: Govt Doesn’t Owe Teachers Apology

  • 18 Mar 2016 8:00 AM
Lázár: Govt Doesn’t Owe Teachers Apology
It is not the government that owes an apology to teachers after spending 266 billion forints (EUR 850m) over the past few years to hike wages in the sector, government office chief János Lázár said at a weekly government press conference. Lázár was commenting on István Pukli, a headmaster who has become the symbolic leader of Hungary’s teacher protest movement, calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and President János Áder to apologise to teachers.

Pukli said teachers would hold a one-hour strike unless leaders of the country apologised for bad policies over the past six years.

Orbán said in response on Wednesday, that he took the teachers’ ultimatum as a joke. Lázár said an apology is not a professional approach of the issue, adding that after spending 266 billion forints on wage hikes and 380 billion forints on EU developments in the education sector “it is not us who should apologise”.

László Palkovics, the state secretary in charge of education, on Thursday said that effective regulations do not ensure “legal conditions for a legitimate teachers’ strike”.

He said that the interests of “children, teachers, and schools” can only be served through “dialogue and joint efforts” in the government-initiated public education roundtable.

Palkovics said that the government was in consultations with the strike committee of teacher union PSZ and added that “there are some open issues”.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu - Visit Hungary Matters to sign-up for MTI’s twice-daily newsletter.

  • How does this content make you feel?