MOSCOW, January 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to be able to fulfil his electoral pledge to hike teachers’ salaries, according to a long-term social and economic development forecast published by Russia’s Economics Ministry on Wednesday.
In early 2012, then-presidential candidate Putin pledged in a Kosmomolskaya Pravda newspaper article to hike university staff salaries to 200 percent of the regional average salary from September 2013, and raise them again to double the national average by 2018, in what seemed like a bid to win the support of his core constituency, which mostly included state employees and blue-collar workers.
The ministry’s forecasts for Russia’s social and economic development until 2030 say Putin’s salary hike pledge for teachers is very unlikely to be achieved.
In its baseline scenario for a more innovation-driven Russian economy, teacher’s salaries in the state-sector will reach just 75 percent of average in 2015, 77 percent by 2020-2025 and 78 percent by 2030.
In 2011, teacher’s salaries were 68 percent of the average level.
The ministry’s innovation scenario envisages structural shifts in the Russian economy, supported by more efficient use of resources, with the innovation sector growing to 16 percent of Russia’s GDP by 2030 and the share of oil and gas production in falling to 10 percent of GDP.