Wages of teachers are on the lower side of the average pay checks in Russia, along with medical doctors. The reason is that most teachers and doctors work for the government and are paid from the budget, and the government isn’t splurging on education and health.

Many Russian women seeking men for marriage on Elenasmodels.com work in education, so you are probably wondering how much do they earn?

Teachers in Russia make 30,000 RUB (USD 500) per month

Educators earn less during the months of summer encompassing school holidays, when they don’t do any extra work with students (providing training in extracurricular activities, managing before and after school care, etc.).

There are also different statistical data that seems contradicting, but the figures depend on methodology (what is included and excluded).

We will show you the numbers reported by GKS.ru and adjust them for overtime (which is included in reports as the salary earned) and payment inequality (remuneration of the management is included in the general statistics).

The general figures for the industry of education are shown below.

There are also specific reports showing average earnings of certain categories of teachers, which give us much higher numbers. All salaries in Russia are reported as the amount earned  monthly, not weekly or annually.

What did Mark Twain say about statistics?

You know the quote, and so do we. Let’s now work backward and adjust for manipulations, typical for official statistics.

All amounts in USD are calculated by the exchange rate on 8 November 2019 (63.74 Russian RUB per 1 US Dollar).

In both previous reports you’ve seen above, the numbers had been calculated for the purposes of statistics. The salaries of top officials, which can be 10-15 times higher than those in lower ranks, are added up, thus substantially (20-30%) skewing the picture as compared to median wages (typical for the industry).

So, if you want to figure out the wage of a regular educator working with students in the classroom, it’s about 20-30% lower than the averages you see reported, to adjust for the disproportionally high wages of the management.

• Thus, if we deduct 20% from the wages of a kindergarten teacher, it’s about 26,000 RUB (about $400) per month.
• School teacher‘s wage: 32,000 ($500).
• Educators in colleges, trade schools, and the ones providing trainings in various extracurricular activities earn about $30,000 ($470).
• Lecturers of universities earn 69,000 ($1,080).

Remember, these amounts include extra hours: As you could see in comparing remuneration in January vs. August, there is a huge difference in the basic salary and the full payment based on extra hours the teacher worked.

There are not enough educators in Russia because of low salaries, so most of them have to work extra hours. It helps them to get higher pay checks, but they are working more than 40-hour-weeks.

If we look at the difference in the wages for August and January, people have to work extra 33% in addition to the base salary, in order to earn the amount they get as the pay check.

Truth about earnings of Russian teachers

• The average wage in the industry of education in August 2019 was about 5,800 RUB (USD 91) per week. This is the base wage for a 40-hour-week, so our teachers on average earn 145 RUB or USD 2 per hour ($2.28, to be precise).

To earn a living and close the gaps left by insufficient staffing at schools, the majority of teachers have to work about 10-15 hours per week extra.

Now you know how much teachers in Russia make.

Data: GKS.ru

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