Around 128,000 workers from 7,000 kindergartens, elementary and secondary schools took part in strike against the Education Ministry's draft budget next year in capital Prague on Tuesday.
Some 500 demonstrators from various regions gathered in Prague's Maltezske Namesti Square at the back of the Education Ministry. Meetings were also held in other Czech regions.
Frantisek Dobsik, chairman of the Czech School Workers' Union, said the Association of Private Schools also supported the strike.
A few private schools have joined the action, he added.
More than half of the total of about 10,500 regional education facilities participate in the protest.
The Chamber of Deputies will probably raise the Education Ministry's budget by about 1 billion crowns (56 million U.S. dollars), but unions said this is not enough.
The unions announced the strike after they failed in the negotiations about adding 3 billion crowns to the Education Ministry's draft budget for 2008.
The teachers' pay is to rise by 1.5 percent next year, which is well below the projected inflation of 4.4 to 5.8 percent, that would decrease the teachers' real pay, according to unions.
New education minister Ondrej Liska, who took office on the same day, echoed Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, saying the strike will change nothing.
The education sector will not get the claimed extra 3 billion crowns for salaries and teaching aids next year, Liska added.
Topolanek said that the decreasing numbers of pupils at elementary schools will make it possible to raise teachers' pay by4 percent to 4.5 percent, "which is the most in the whole public sphere and more than the envisaged inflation." (1 U.S. dollar = 17.85 crowns)
Source: Xinhua
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