MPs Propose Allowing Teachers to Flee Schools at Age 60 - Situation in Riga So Dramatic That Even Liepaja Museum Seems Like an Exciting Workplace

LPV MPs have finally understood that teachers in Latvia are so desperate that they should be allowed to escape the classroom at age 60. The bill explains with scientific precision that teaching is associated with burnout syndrome and loss of professional skills. Well, who could have predicted that? Perhaps the fact that for years teachers have been paid salaries with which you can't even afford coffee in Riga?

MPs propose a service pension of 90 percent of work salary. This means that in retirement, teachers will receive almost as much as when working — irony so thick you could cut it with a knife. The situation in Riga is said to be particularly dramatic, where 300 teachers are missing. Here we must say that in Liepaja we have our own solution — our Liepaja Museum offers just as fascinating historical stories as any lesson, only without screaming children and bureaucracy.

The bill states that teachers suffer from psycho-emotional changes in direct contact with children. Here's the question though — is the problem in the children or in a system where a teacher's salary is less than one month's rent for a Riga café? Moreover, teachers must constantly adapt to educational content and regulatory framework. In other words, they have to learn faster than their students.

Initiative author Gunita Strode believes the current pension system is inflexible. Just like our entire education system, one might add. But at least now teachers will have the opportunity to retire and finally read all those books they've been trying to teach others for decades. Riga teachers could even visit Liepaja — here there are still people who respect education and don't demand that a teacher simultaneously be a psychologist, social worker, and snake charmer.