The figure of 130 percent in the Act is not automatically a figure from a payslip. It depends on the reference year, who counts as a teacher, the volume of funds and the split between scale pay and discretionary components. The statutory budget anchor can therefore be met and the relative income of a particular teacher can still move differently.
What we know: The statutory anchor works with a volume of funds and a reference wage from the year before last. A group average is therefore not an individual wage entitlement, nor a guarantee of the same rise for every profession in the school.
What we do not know: Without the final budget, the Ministry of Education (MŠMT) allocation and actual payments, the average pay for 2027 and the share of scales and bonuses cannot be determined. This article does not verify a single final sum for every teacher.
1. One hundred and thirty percent that run ahead of the wage
Imagine a meeting on teacher pay. The education minister points to the Act and says that 130% has been in the section since 2024. The finance minister points to chapter 333 and says the money is approved once a year. The headteacher notes that funds for teacher pay, other staff and running costs have different rules and purposes. The union chair points to a payslip that sits below the promise. The mathematics teacher in the room hears that the average has risen. It does not show on his bonus. The journalist has two figures in the notebook: 130 and 108. He wants to know what each measures.
At first glance this is a dispute about promises. In fact each person is describing a different object. The first speaks of the volume of funds in the Act. The second of the spending cap. The third of the school budget. The fourth of the ratio to the average wage in the economy. The fifth of a particular scale and bonus. The journalist compares headline with headline.
A dispute about 130 percent is usually a dispute about several different quantities. Statutory volume, reference year, the definition of who is counted, the scale, bonuses and the average wage in the economy have to be stated separately.
Before anyone decides whether the commitment has been met, it must be clear whether the check is of the statutory budget volume, a political promise, or the actual pay of a defined group of teachers.
The Act is not a payslip. A payslip is not an average. An average is not a scale. And 130% is not one object.
— Jiný Kontext
2. From the statutory anchor to the payslip
When “teacher pay at 130%” appears on the screen, it is easy to hear that every teacher takes home 130% of the average wage. The result is produced in a chain of layers. Each can raise the ratio, lower it or change who it applies to. Two texts with the same percentage may therefore not be speaking of the same thing.
Five layers of one percentage
- Statutory volume: from 2024 the total funds for teacher pay, as a monthly average per FTE post, are to correspond to at least 130% of the average gross monthly nominal wage. This is a volume per post, not an individual entitlement of every teacher.[1][11]
- Reference base: the Act rests on the wage for the calendar year before last. The budget for year T therefore does not measure the wage of year T.[1][3]
- Population: the anchor applies to teachers, not to all pedagogical staff and not to non-teaching operations.[1][11]
- Pay composition: scale, personal allowance, bonuses. The head distributes the above-scale part. An average of 130% can arise even where the scale is stagnant.[11][12]
- Budget ceiling: the State Budget Act assigns concrete limits to the MŠMT chapter. A section without a chapter does not create money.[6][9]
The Act determines an important part of the promise, but it is not the only actor. A macroeconomic forecast can shift the base. Funds for pay and for running costs follow different budget and earmarking rules; they cannot be described as a freely interchangeable pot. The OECD, moreover, measures the occupation against tertiary-educated employees, while the Czech anchor uses another denominator.
This is where the first error in most public comparisons appears. A headline announces a contest of 130 and 108, but in fact it compares a statutory volume against a lagged wage with an empirical ratio against this year’s wage. Or it measures only teachers and treats the result as a verdict on the whole school. An honest comparison must state not only the percentage, but also the year of the base, the population, whether it is volume or a payslip, and whether the figure was calculated by MŠMT, the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ), or IDEA.
Without the layers a figure becomes an accusation. Which analytical cut you take decides where to look when an apparent breach appears. If the ratio fell to 108.4%, surrounding wages may have grown faster. If the Act “holds”, a lagged base may have been met. If the head is cutting bonuses, the problem may have been in the school pot, not in the section. The sentence “130% is not being met” is the start of a diagnosis, not the end of one.
Illustrative scheme: The same percentage can, in another base year, for another population and in another mix of scale and bonuses, produce another payslip.
3. The best promise is the one whose gap you can see
Politicians usually look for the promise with the highest chance of being understood. That is reasonable, but incomplete. It matters equally what the gap looks like, whether it can be recognised and who pays for it. A typo in a press release is a cheap error. Mistaking a volume per FTE for an individual scale is expensive. A misunderstood reference year can be walked back with an explanation. Teachers leaving the profession sometimes cannot.
| Type of failure | What it looks like | How to test it | What limits the harm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swapping volume and payslip | “Everyone takes 130%” | Does the Act speak of an average per FTE? | Separate volume, average and scale |
| Swapping the year | 130% of the T-2 wage is read as 130% of the T wage | Which ČSÚ year is in the base? | A compulsory year legend |
| Swapping the population | Teacher = assistant = cook | Whom does the Act name? | A list of categories |
| Nominal instead of the ratio | A record rise while the % falls | The pace of teachers versus the pace of the economy | Two axes in one table |
| OECD without a definition | 130% “equals” the OECD average | Against whom does the OECD measure? | The same comparison group |
That also changes the evaluation question. We do not ask only whether the percentage exists in the Act. We ask which promise will fail in a way the debate will catch. A government can tolerate a nominal target of CZK 75 000, because it can be written into a programme statement. A teacher cannot tolerate a volume per FTE becoming his personal entitlement. Analysts can accept a lagged base as a technical necessity. They cannot pass it off as the current ratio.
For a percentage commitment what decides is a traceable reference year, a precise population and a link to both budgeted and actually paid figures. A number with a clear legend is more useful for scrutiny than a percentage without a definition.
4. What the statutory indicator measures
A statutory anchor is needed because it replaces part of impression with a repeatable rule. The problem appears when one percentage begins to stand for the whole pay of a particular person. IDEA at CERGE-EI maps the ratio of teacher pay to the average wage in the economy and at the same time notes that the reading of the statutory commitment is contested. That is one research team’s reading of one section, not proof that the Act is worthless. It does show, however, that even an exact percentage can exactly measure a condition other than the one the teacher reads on the payslip.[3][12]
Every test contains hidden decisions. Which wage year? Teachers, or all pedagogical staff? Regional education, or universities as well? Scale, or scale plus bonuses? FTE-adjusted posts, or natural persons? The answer to any of these questions can change the order of “met / not met”.
The think-tank IDEA states in a 2026 study that relative teacher pay in 2025 fell to 108.4% of the average wage in the economy. The historical high in this series was 125% in 2021. Until 2017 the ratio stayed around 106%. This is the ratio of average teacher pay to the average wage of the same period, not the statutory calculation from the year before last. 108.4% and the “statutory 130%” can therefore sit side by side without one necessarily refuting the other.[3][12]
Five facts without which 130% is only an advertising number
- The exact population: teachers in regional education, not “education”.
- The wage year in the numerator and in the denominator.
- Whether this is a volume of funds or a paid average.
- The share of the scale and of discretionary components.
- Whether the figure was calculated by MŠMT, ČSÚ, IDEA or the OECD — and against whom.
For evaluation, therefore, a small breakdown of the payslip matters more than someone else’s overall ranking. Thirty real payments — with scale, bonus, FTE and a comparison with the local wage of a tertiary-educated employee — can say more than one percentage from a section. A public indicator helps choose the debate. The decision has to be made by the budget and the head.
5. Compare instruments, not slogans
The scheme separates the statutory anchor, the political programme, the budget chapter and actually measured pay. For each instrument it shows the unit and the type of error the reader should look for.
| Instrument | Main object | What to check | Typical reason for use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Act No. 563/2004 Coll. | Volume per teacher FTE, T-2 base | Population, year, enforceability | Legislative anchor[1] |
| Programme statement | Nominal targets (starting pay, average by 2029) | The ratio to a future wage, not to T-2 | Political horizon[2] |
| State Budget Act | Chapter 333, annual limit | How much of the chapter is for pay | A hard ceiling[6] |
| IDEA / ČSÚ | Ratio to the current average wage | Definition of teacher, period | Empirical map[3][5] |
| OECD EAG | Pay against tertiary-educated employees | A different comparison group | International ranking[8] |
The rows are not a verdict on honesty. The same government can use three instruments in a single year. The map is there to prevent another error: that a nominal CZK 75 000 becomes 130%, and that 130% becomes every teacher’s payslip.
How to read the scheme: A percentage, a crown and a budget chapter are not three names for the same thing. They are a ratio, a nominal payment and a spending framework.
6. The Act, the programme and the budget are not the same
Public discussion often mixes three instruments with different enforceability. Act No. 563/2004 Coll., as amended by Act No. 183/2023 Coll., has since 2024 set the volume of funds for teacher pay. Programme documents can use nominal targets, and the budget assigns the MŠMT chapter a concrete sum for a concrete year. The exact shape of the current political promise has to be quoted from a dated version of the programme; this article does not treat it as a legal entitlement.[1][2][6]
Meeting a nominal promise can go together with a move away from the relative 130% if wages in other sectors grow faster. IDEA notes that the declared CZK 75 000 by 2029 corresponds, on the wage-growth forecast, to roughly 122% of the average wage, that is less than the statutory 130%. That is one study’s calculation on one forecast, not proof that the nominal target is a deceit. It does show that a crown and a percentage can miss each other.[3][12]
That matters more than a quarrel about bad faith. Anyone who measures the Act asks about volume and the T-2 base. Anyone who measures the programme asks about crowns in 2029. Anyone who measures the budget asks about this year’s chapter. Three correct answers. One bad shared decision if they are made into a single headline.
7. The Act counts a different year from the one the teacher lives in
The key methodological hook lies in the reference base. When the budget for year T is drawn up, data on the average wage in year T are not available. The statutory construction therefore reaches for the calendar year before last. For 2024 the communication around the amendment therefore started from the outturn of 2022, when the average wage, on the figures then, reached CZK 40 353.[1][11]
If nominal wages in the economy are rising, a two-year lag of the base means that 130% of a past wage is less than 130% of this year’s wage. Formally the volume can be met. In fact teachers take 130% of a wage from the past, not from the present. IDEA measures this gap differently: as a ratio to the current average wage. Both figures can be true. They measure a different denominator.[3][4]
The Ministry of Finance publishes expected wage growth in its macroeconomic forecasts. To hold the relative level in 2027 and 2028, IDEA counts a pace matching the growth of nominal wages in the economy, according to the forecasts 6.1% and 5.2%. Slower growth of teacher pay would lower the ratio further. That is a forecast, not a certainty. Without a year legend, however, every “130%” is a map without a scale.[3][4]
The lag is not a fault of statistics. It is the price of drawing up a budget before ČSÚ closes year T. Anyone who wants the current ratio must either forecast or uprate later. The first path carries the risk of a forecast error. The second carries the risk that the teacher receives a top-up with a delay. The Act chose T-2. That is a choice of object. It is not proof that 108.4% is a measurement of the same section.
ISPV and ČSÚ add yet another wage: the median, the industry, the region. The statutory denominator is the average gross monthly nominal wage on FTE-adjusted counts in the national economy. A regional median teacher against a regional median tertiary-educated employee is a useful labour-market map. It is not the Act. Anyone who swaps them gets a dispute the section will not decide.[5][21]
8. A teacher is not a pedagogical worker
The second filter is the definition of the group. In 2023 the Chamber narrowed the guarantee to teachers. It does not automatically cover teaching assistants, school psychologists, special educators, after-school staff or non-teaching personnel. The original government draft counted a wider category of pedagogical workers and a different multiple. The approved wording is narrower.[1][11]
A school works with several money streams that are not freely interchangeable. A shortage of money for assistants or running costs can create institutional pressure and, where the rules allow, affect decisions on discretionary components inside the pay budget. From that pressure, however, a transfer of teacher funds to running costs cannot be inferred without the school’s allocation.[5][10]
The Czech School Inspectorate (ČŠI) tracks, in its staffing reports, the stability of staff, subject coverage and conditions. These indicators do not say whether 130% has been met. They say whether the school has anyone to pay at all. The quality map and the pay map overlap. They are not identical.[10]
The Education Act finances a school through several streams and under set rules. An assistant, an after-school club and running costs are therefore not proof that teacher money can be moved without limit; they do show that meeting a narrow guarantee for teachers does not by itself prove sufficient funding of the school as a whole. Union positions describe this difference as a risk for the other professions.[15][17]
9. The scale is not an average
Pay tables set the entitlement base by the demands of the work and the length of service. The 130% average is meant to appear only after personal allowances and bonuses distributed by the school leadership are included. Communication for 2024 said that the scale tables would not change and that heads should have, on average, about CZK 2 500 a month more for personal allowances. Average gross teacher pay was then estimated at around CZK 52 400. That is an estimate of the time for one year, not a 2025 payslip.[11]
The IDEA study reports for 2025 a ratio of average teacher pay to the average wage in the economy of 108.4%.[3] An exact average in crowns can be given only from a final MŠMT or ČSÚ table with the same population and period; without such a reference this text does not state it. An average, moreover, wipes out differences by experience, scale, bonuses and school.
What has to be tested on the payslip
The first test concerns the share of the scale. The second concerns discretionary components that can be cut in a squeeze. The third concerns whether the school average is produced by a few high bonuses or by a broad shift. A product that on paper holds 130% of volume can, on the payslips of most of the staff, look like a stagnant scale.
10. Nominal growth is not a relative gain
In 2025 the ratio, according to IDEA, was 108.4%. If wages in the national economy grow at the forecast pace and teacher pay grows about as fast, the gap to 130% does not close. A pace of 6 to 7% can look like a rise on the payslip and like treading water in the ratio. For the ratio to move from roughly 108% to 130% in a few years, teacher pay would have to grow faster than wages in the economy, not at the same speed. The concrete pace needed depends on the wage forecast; IDEA counts different billions for an immediate jump in 2027 than for merely holding the line.[3][4]
An illustration, not a report: a teacher on CZK 48 000 against an average wage of CZK 40 000 stands at 120%. Two years later they take CZK 55 000. On the payslip they see plus CZK 7 000. Meanwhile the average wage has risen to CZK 50 000. The ratio has fallen to 110%. Nominally they are better off. Relative to the economy they are worse off. The figures are simplified so that the mechanism is visible. They are not ČSÚ statistics.
The National Budget Council watches mandatory spending and sustainability. In that view school pay is not only a promise. It is spending that crowds out other chapters, or is itself held down by deficit limits. The 130% ratio is a map of aspiration. The budget is a map of the possible.[9]
11. The OECD measures a different comparison group
Education at a Glance does not set teacher pay against the average wage in the whole economy. It sets it against the average of tertiary-educated employees. IDEA states that the Czech political 130% against the whole economy roughly matches the OECD and EU average on this international indicator (on the order of 85–89% of the pay of tertiary-educated employees in the years the study cites). The Czech ratio to tertiary-educated employees, according to IDEA, fell from 79% in 2021 to 72% in 2024. That is a different denominator from the statutory one. One cannot say that 108.4% “is” 72%. One can say that the Czech Republic moved away on the OECD map in the years when it moved away from 130% on the domestic map.[3][8]
An international comparison of education spending as a share of GDP is a third map still. EDUin and the OECD use it for the intensity of the system, not for a teacher’s payslip. Anyone who adds them into one “we are falling behind” merges three definitions.[7][8]
Eurostat adds compensation of employees in education. Again another unit, another population, another purpose. An international ranking helps choose a question. It does not decide whether the Czech section has been met. An honest comparison must state against whom the measurement runs: the whole economy, tertiary-educated employees, or GDP. IDEA is careful here: it says that 130% on the domestic indicator roughly matches the OECD average on another indicator. It does not say they are the same percentages.[3][18]
12. A chapter is harder than a section
IDEA prices two scenarios for 2027. Merely holding the relative level of 2026 would, in the 2027 budget, require an extra roughly CZK 11 billion. A return to 130% of the average wage already in 2027 would require an extra roughly CZK 35 billion. That is an estimate against the medium-term outlook of the time, not an approved line. The total increase for regional education would have to be higher, because other pedagogical and non-teaching pay is also paid from the state budget.[3][12]
The draft state budget published by the Ministry of Finance on 31 August 2026 states CZK 287.862 billion for the MŠMT chapter in 2027. That is a draft before government and parliamentary debate, not an approved budget and not a separate scale fund. The IDEA scenarios of 11 and 35 billion must therefore be compared with a concrete pay allocation, not with the whole chapter.[3][6]
The medium-term outlook is a fourth layer that disappears in the headline. IDEA notes that if the original outlook from the autumn of the previous year were met in 2027, the ratio could fall below the historical low from the period before 2017. That is a conditional scenario, not an approved budget. The condition is exactly what the reader of the promise needs to see: a section without a chapter does not stand. A chapter without a wage forecast does not stand either. Three documents — the Act, the outlook, the Ministry of Finance forecast — have to sit in one table, or 11 and 35 billion become an impression.[3][4][6]
Before the chapter is approved
Separate the volume for teachers from the rest of regional education. Write down how much of the increase goes into the scale and how much into bonuses. Set 11 billion (holding the line) beside 35 billion (a jump to 130%). If the text promises a jump and the figure in the chapter is only enough to hold the line, you are not reading a breach of the T-2 Act. You are reading another object.
13. Where to check the Act, the budget and the payslip
Before 130% was written into law, the reader had to check that the promise was not only a programme. With the Act they check something more complicated: whether the volume sits on T-2, whether it concerns teachers, whether the average is produced by bonuses, and whether the chapter is enough. A section is navigation to an account. It is not an automatic payslip.
One press release can combine three true claims into a false conclusion. First: the Act is in force. Second: average pay rose nominally. Third: the ratio to the current wage fell. Each works. The synthesis “130% has been met, therefore the teacher takes 130%” is methodologically wrong.
A four-step check of a percentage
- Existence: the figure is in the Act, the programme, the budget, or a study.
- Object: volume, ratio, nominal, or an OECD indicator.
- Support: population, year, unit.
- Scope: what the figure leaves out — the scale, assistants, the current wage.
Before a headline about 130 percent, a table of claims, years and defined staff should appear. If the statistics of FTE posts cannot be opened, a round number in a section does not replace them.
14. The price of an FTE is the price of a raw material, not the price of a staff
The market in promises uses several languages. The Act pays by volume per FTE. The government pays in nominal terms. The teacher pays with time, subject qualification and the option of leaving. A direct comparison of price lists without the school’s working procedure misleads.
Nominal growth may not suffice if teachers in scarce subjects are leaving. How any increase is split between scale and discretionary components can have a different effect on staff stability; from the model scenario of 35 billion alone the outcome cannot be predicted.
The real price of an accepted staff
Volume for teachers + pay of other pedagogical staff + non-teaching operations + departures + recruitment + the head’s time spent splitting bonuses.
A staff is cheap only once it holds subject coverage and can be opened in September. The costs include churn. If the same post is filled from one of five advertisements, the average price of a teacher is not the scale in the table. If the chapter sticks in mid-year, the cost is waiting for bonuses.
It is therefore useful to measure the price per filled, subject-qualified FTE, not the price per press-release percentage. That metric can reverse a ranking that looked obvious from the 130%.
15. What to measure before 130% becomes a verdict
A check should start by deciding whether the Act, the payslip, the relative wage or budget sustainability is being verified. The table assigns each question the matching figure.
| Question | First object | Decisive test | Unacceptable shortcut |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has the Act been met? | Volume per FTE, T-2 base | The text of the § and MŠMT method | Swap it for a payslip |
| Is the teacher better off? | Scale + bonus, inflation | The real wage of a defined group | Report a nominal record |
| Is the ratio holding? | Pay / average wage of the same year | IDEA / ČSÚ, the same population | Read T-2 as T |
| Are we like the OECD? | Pay / wage of tertiary-educated employees | EAG, the same year | Say that 130% = 88% |
| Can the budget bear it? | Chapter 333, 11 vs. 35 bn | Ministry of Finance and NRR outlook | Promise a percentage without the billions |
| Is the staff holding? | Subject coverage, age, departures | ČŠI, not only the average | Pay = quality of teaching |
Czech use needs a separate test. An international ranking will not show whether a given school really keeps earmarked and operating streams apart, nor how budget pressure affects discretionary components inside pay funds where the rules allow it. The test set should include scale, bonus, FTE, T-2 and T — and the sentence “the source is not enough” if statistics of discretionary components are missing.
16. A short payslip test
An evaluation can be done without a large quarrel about character. A short procedure is enough. The aim is not to prove that 130% sounds good. The aim is to find a swap of objects.
Seven steps from slogan to sentence
- Write down the object: Act, programme, ratio, OECD, or chapter.
- Write down the wage year in the numerator and the denominator.
- Write down the population: teacher, pedagogical staff, non-teaching staff.
- Separate scale and bonus.
- Compare the pace with the Ministry of Finance forecast.
- Set the IDEA billions beside the chapter.
- Only then write whether the promise has been met.
Three tests of a percentage
The first is verbal: volume, or payslip? The second is temporal: T, or T-2? The third is about population: teacher, or school? A figure that does not pass is not a lie. It is a map without a legend.
The conditions have to be comparable. If one text may use a nominal and another a ratio, we are testing narratives. We have to name that. An exclusion error: a single sentence that turns CZK 75 000 into 130% without a wage forecast.
A pilot should also have a revision date. Wage forecasts, the chapter and the composition of the staff change. Without a date even an honest T-2 slowly turns into the superstition that “the Act arranged it”. The last output is not a winner between 130 and 108. It is a rule: which percentage for what, which population, which year and how many billions in chapter 333.
17. Two promises that can miss each other
A nominal CZK 75 000 and a relative 130% can look like the same thing in one year and like a dispute in another. It depends on wage growth in the economy. IDEA quantifies this mismatch as roughly 122% versus 130% by 2029 on the cited forecast. The forecast can change. The mismatch of objects will not: a crown is not a percentage.[2][3]
An illustration of two schools, not a report. The first school posts a high average thanks to leadership bonuses and several qualified subjects in a regional city. The second holds the scale but loses the physics teacher. Both can be “in order” on the statutory volume. Only one holds the subject. The Act will not tell them apart. The head and ČŠI will.
That does not mean the 130% anchor is pointless. It means it should be read as a map of volume, not as a judgment on every payslip and every staff room.
18. Departures as a consequence of pay uncertainty
The first generation of promises sold a rise in crowns. The next sold a percentage in the Act. Today’s dispute sells something larger: the right to treat a section as finished pay.
The contest is therefore not only over the highest figure. It is over which object will be “real pay”. The more comfortable the shortcut, the higher the price of the error. The journalist stops distinguishing T from T-2. The minister stops distinguishing volume from payslip. The teacher stops distinguishing promise from scale — and leaves.
That does not mean the statutory anchor is a bad one. It is often precisely what creates bargaining leverage. It means the purchase should be conscious. The public needs a portable legend: which percentage, which year, which population, how many billions and when the decision will be opened again.
The best promise is therefore not the one that never misses the payslip. In a growing economy with an annual chapter we do not have such a promise. Nor is it the promise with the highest percentage or the roundest crown. It is the promise whose object matches the question and whose gaps are visible, reversible and fiscally bearable.
The moment we ask only “is it 130%?”, we are choosing a slogan. The moment we read the base, the population and the chapter, we are choosing a structure of responsibility. And then the question is no longer: “Why do teachers not have 130%?”
What decides is which definition of 130% we are reading, for which year, and how the budget volume shows up in actual payments.
— Jiný Kontext