Nicolae Margarint
This was stated by Nicolae Margarint, a member of Parliament and a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Social Protection, Health Care, and Family Affairs, as he criticized a bill in Parliament that would place schools under the direct authority of the relevant ministry and establish 35 regional education agencies.
The lawmaker asked how many employees would work at the new agencies and pointed out that, according to the explanatory note accompanying the bill, approximately 300,000 leu, of which approximately 240,000 leu are earmarked for payroll expenses.
“A simple mathematical calculation shows that this amounts to about 40,000 leu per month per employee. How will you explain to Moldova’s teachers that an office bureaucrat in the new agency will earn nearly three times as much as a teacher with 20 years of experience?” Nicolae Margarint asked Minister of Education and Research Dan Perciun.
The lawmaker also cited data on current salary levels in the education system. According to him, a specialist at a district education office earns about 9,100 lei per month, while a teacher with twenty years of experience earns approximately 12,000 lei.
The minister replied that the new agencies would take over the functions of the district education departments and would not result in additional administrative costs. At the same time, he acknowledged the need to increase the salaries of employees responsible for managing the education system.
However, the minister failed to provide a clear answer to the MP’s main question: how the authorities intend to explain to teachers across the country such a significant disparity between their salaries and the incomes of employees in the new administrative structures.
