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Salaries of Czech teachers remain low
Münich, Daniel ; Smolka, V.
Teacher salaries, in the long term, co-determine the quality of teachers and education in schools. The relative teachers’ pay compared with salaries in alternative professions in a country also determines what ranks prospective young teachers recruit from, which of them ultimately become teachers and whether the best of them sustain a long-term career in teaching. For long relative salaries of Czech teachers have been among the lowest among more than 30 most developed countries of the world (OECD). Also in 2015, as the study shows, increases in teacher salaries only hardly kept pace with the trend of salaries of other tertiary-educated public and private sector employees. In the last decade, the unfavourable relative pay situation of Czech teachers has effectively not changed.
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Will you qualify for a pension?
Jurajda, Štěpán ; Šatava, Jiří
There is a chance that a part of the Czech population will not meet the basic prerequisite for being granted an old-age pension: 35 years of social security payments. Very likely, many social security payers are not aware of this threat, and have therefore not taken the option to secure their old-age pension through voluntary social security payments, or by extended participation on the labor market. This study tries to draw attention to this issue. Through simplified model simulation, we have shown that the group of people in danger of not receiving pension is non-negligible, and potentially includes tens of thousands of people. However, only a few thousand payers have opted for voluntary social security payments. Based on the data available to them, the Czech Social Security Administration should evaluate the scope of this issue and keep the payers informed, in a timely and regular manner, whether they actually qualify for an old-age pension.
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Learning by torture or learning by play? A comparison of satisfaction with school and mathematics from the perspective of international testing programs
Federičová, Miroslava ; Münich, Daniel
The international survey PISA 2012, which focused on 15-year-old students in OECD countries and many others, showed that almost 80% of students feel happy at school. Among the 64 participating countries, those with the highest proportion of contented students were Indonesia, Albania and Peru (96%, 94% and 94%). However, the countries with the lowest share of such students were South Korea, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (60%, 63% and 64%).
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Estimated impacts of VAT rate changes on households: comparison of two different scenarios from 2013
Janský, Petr
On November 7, 2012, the Chamber of Deputies passed the so-called stabilization package proposed by the government, which includes a hike of the VAT rate by 1 percentage point starting from the following year, hence the reduced and basic rates will increase to 15 and 21 percentages, respectively. This study presents a projection of the impacts of this bill and compares them to the current legislation, which unifies the VAT rates to 17.5%. The methodology underlying these projections is derived from an earlier IDEA Policy Study on “How Would The Tax Changes Impact Households and Public Budgets” published on February 24, 2011.
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To be or not to be a teacher: Czech teachers’ salaries from an opportunity costs perspective in a broader context
Münich, Daniel ; Straka, Jan
In this paper we present new evidence on how very low the teaching profession’s wage attractiveness is in primary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic. We show that 70-90% of university educated employees receive higher salaries than an average teacher. Teachers with 15 years’ experience earn only half of what their university educated peers do. The low financial attractiveness of the teaching profession is reflected in the low interest among young people, especially talented ones, in becoming teachers. We present our findings within a broader and longerterm economic context, showing the causal chain from the level of motivation to become a teacher, to the quality of teachers, quality of education, level of education of the population and, as a result, the long-term growth of the economy and the country’s well-being in general.
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Czech aid to developing countries: not only financial development cooperation
Janský, Petr ; Řehořová, Z.
The study describes the Czech Republic’s performance in terms of aid efforts to developing countries in comparison with other developed countries. For the first time, the authors apply a time-proven methodology of the Center for Global Development think tank in Washington called “Commitment to Development Index”. The Czech Republic ranks in 20th position out of 23 evaluated countries, so according to this index, we have a great potential for improvement. The study is firm and foremost showing that developed countries, such as the Czech Republic, can help through other means then simply financial development collaboration. Strategic decisions of governments and companies in areas such as international trade or migration often have a great impact on citizens of developing countries. The Index shows that compared to countries at the top – Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands – the Czech Republic is mostly behind in the area of development and safety collaboration; on the other hand, it excels in international trade and environmental issues. The Czech Republic’s results in investment, migration and technologies are slightly below average. Even in times of cuts in Czech public budgets there is a room for improvement in terms of aid to developing countries. It could often be much more acceptable for the Czech republic, and much more beneficial for developing countries, if we changed the status quo of our public policies, rather than simply increased financial aid to developing countries.
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