The crisis in the Czech teaching profession is deepening, manifested in a shortage of qualified teachers, an ageing workforce, and a decline in the social prestige of the profession. Data from the OECD (2025) and national analyses show that young people, in particular, are losing interest in becoming teachers due to low financial remuneration, excessive bureaucracy, and high levels of stress. While the government of Andrej Babiš (2017–2021) oversaw a historic increase in teachers’ salaries and a period of stabilization in the education sector, real wages began to fall after the government of Petr Fiala took office, pushing the system back to its pre-2017 state. The new government of ANO, SPD and Motoristé sobě now faces the task of reversing this negative trend, which threatens to trigger a personnel collapse in Czech education.

Key takeaways:

• Education as the Cinderella of public policy: Only 22% of Czech teachers feel that their profession is socially respected. Under Fiala’s government, teachers’ salaries also fell from 125% of the national average wage to 109%.
• A staffing crisis: The shortage of young teachers, combined with an ageing teaching workforce, threatens to push Czech education to the brink of operational unsustainability within a few years.
• A new direction: The new government of ANO, SPD and Motoristé sobě plans to reform teacher training, introduce a career system, and raise the average teacher salary to as much as CZK 75,000 per month.

Policy Paper – Jan Rovenský

The analysis is in PDF under the link below.