In a special press conference on Sunday September 9 2007, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski and Education Minister Daniel Vulchev announced increases and extra money for education in the 2008 budget.

Education is a top government priority, but we do not want payment ‘by the piece’ and we will not yield to pressure, Stanishev said, as reported by Focus News Agency.

The PM stressed that the 2008 budget would make it clear education was a government priority. Special programs would be implemented to update and improve Bulgarian education, and textbooks would be free for pupils from first to seventh grade.

The cabinet will raise the salary of teachers in several steps. Per January 1 2008 and again per July 1 there will be a 10 per cent raise for all teachers. After January 1 2008, the second stage of the differential payment will give the possibility of an additional five per cent increase in salary to the most motivated teachers.

With this, the salaries are set to rise over this period by up to 30 per cent.

After July 1 2008, the third stage of the differential salary would raise the salaries of teachers by another maximum fiver per cent, zagrada.bg said.

With the proposed increases the salary of teachers could reach 560 leva by January 1 2008, said Stanishev.

The additional raises until the end of this government's mandate were expected to raise the salaries of the best teachers to around 920 leva per month, said zagrada.bg.

Parts of this news are source: zagrada.bg
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