Cypriot teachers are paid less than most of their colleagues in Europe, with the average pay cheque for an educator lower than the average salary in 36 countries.
According to data compiled by the European Commission, the average annual salary of a teacher in Cyprus during 2020-2021 was €24,189 (gross).
The average salary of an educator in the EU is €25,055, but Cyprus was 16 on the list, including countries with very low salaries, such as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.
Euronews said most European teachers are unhappy with their salary or working conditions.
Figures compiled by the European Commission indicate that the highest gross annual salary of a teacher in the EU, on average, is €69,706 in Luxembourg, while the lowest is €4,233 in Albania.
Switzerland is in second with €66,972, Germany in third with €54,129, Denmark in fourth with €47,980 and Iceland in fifth with €45,468.
The list of the top ten is completed with Norway, where teachers earn €40,479 on average, Austria with €39,172, the Netherlands with €38,413, Ireland with €37,692 and Sweden with €37,510.
Italy is ahead of Cyprus with €24,297, France with €26,839, Finland with €30,002, Spain with €30,992 and Belgium with €33,825.
Greece was 24th with gross salaries in 2020 and 2021 at €13,104.
Apart from Albania, teachers also had the lowest gross salary in Bosnia at €6,120, Serbia at €6,646, South Macedonia at €7,291, Bulgaria at €7,731 and Poland at €7,908.
Teachers in France and Italy earn half as much as their colleagues in Germany.
In relation to the purchasing power standard (PPS), an artificial monetary unit defined by Eurostat, Cyprus “rises” to 14th with an annual gross salary for 2020 and 2021 at €25,465.
Looking at salaries in PPS irons out some of the cost-of-living differences between countries, but there are still wide disparities.
Teacher salaries seen through this lens ranged from €7,824 PPS in Albania to €50,357 PPS in Germany.
While teachers’ annual gross starting salary is generally between €20,000 and €30,000 PPS, it is still below €20,000 in 10 EU countries: Estonia, Malta, Czechia, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia.
According to Euronews, Cyprus teachers’ average salary had remained almost the same for 12 years, when it was €23,646.
