Medvedev: higher wages for teachers, medics to remain priority
MOSCOW. July 17 (Interfax) - Raising salaries for teachers, doctors and other public sector employees will remain a priority in Russia's budgets for 2013, 2014 and 2015, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.
"It will remain one of the priorities to continually raise salaries for schoolteachers, for kindergarten tutors, for doctors, for scientists, naturally for librarians and museum personnel, in a word for all those who work in the social and cultural spheres," Medvedev told a government conference.
He said one of the government's targets for 2012 is to equalize the average earnings of schoolteachers with the general average wage of the region where they live. Kindergarten tutors will have their salaries raised next year, he promised.
"A program for a phased reform of the compensation system for public sector employees will be submitted to the government before August 1. Undoubtedly, wage rises must be linked to the quality and effectiveness of the work that is being done," he said.
Raising living standards is not the only purpose of wage increases in the public sector, Medvedev said. There are other goals as well, such as solving labor shortages and raising the prestige of professions such as teaching and medicine, according to the prime minister.
as