Thousands of primary school teachers still underpaid

Around 18 thousand primary school teachers in the Netherlands are still unjustly in the lowest salary bracket, despite agreements made with school boards and trade unions to fix this problem in 2008, the Telegraaf reports based on figures from education institute DUO.

The issue of underpaid teachers was already raised in 2008, when agreements were made to help more teachers rise to a higher pay bracket. In that year it was agreed that by 2014 at least 40 percent would be in a higher pay bracket.

According to the new DUO figures, that goal was never achieved. Last year only 26.7 percent of teachers had moved out of the lowest salary bracket, compared to 26 percent in 2016. Over the past years the government did make millions of euros available to increase teachers' salaries, including 270 million euros dedicated to this purpose in the Rutte III government agreement.

Over the past few months primary school teachers across the country regularly protested for higher wages and lower workloads. Next week Friday teachers in Brabant and Limburg will go on strike, the third in a relay teacher strike.