Salaries of education professionals have fallen slightly.

Carolina Sarres*
Reporter from Agência Brasil

Brasilia – Salaries of professionals who provide services in education – such as teachers, pedagogues, coordinators, assistants, security guards, secretaries, cafeteria workers, doormen, among others – experienced quantitative and percentage reductions from 2011 to 2012. According to the Annual Social Information Report (Rais) 2012, released today (11) by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, salaries in the education sector fell from R$ 2.884 to R$ 2.852 – a reduction of 1,1%, which represents R$ 32 less on the payroll.

Among the sectors listed by RAIS (Annual Social Information Report), the service sector is among the three that had the smallest increases in the evaluated period – 2,1%, a rate lower than the national average (2,97%). Among the subsectors listed by the Ministry of Labor, which includes educational services, the production of transport materials also saw a reduction, of 0,34%.

The information that salaries for education professionals decreased in 2012 contradicts another piece of data from RAIS: the service sector generated the most jobs in the same year, around 794. One of the highlights in this sector was precisely the provision of educational services, responsible for 5,67% of the total, approximately 45 jobs.

According to the Ministry of Labor, job creation demonstrates increased household spending on health and education – which, economically, should lead to higher wages, driven by the growing demand for these services. However, what is actually happening is a shortage of professionals.

“This data [salary reduction] shows a reality that, unfortunately, we have been denouncing for a long time. The decrease shows that education is not being valued, in a dynamic where the worker is not being valued,” the president of the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE), Roberto Leão, told Agência Brasil.

According to Leão, the fact that the demand for professionals is high and salaries are low further intensifies the labor shortage. “There are undergraduate courses at universities that are closing because there are no students. Nobody wants to pursue a career that has no future prospects, where you earn little,” explained the president of CNTE, regarding teacher training.

Currently, the minimum wage for public school teachers is R$ 1.567. According to Roberto Leão, the fact that this minimum wage is not being respected throughout the country contributes to the decrease in the average salary.

"In the public sector, a teacher can earn up to 60% less than a professional with the same [higher] education, such as engineers or lawyers," he reported.

According to Priscila Cruz, executive director of the Todos pela Educação (All for Education) movement, the salaries of professionals, in absolute terms, have increased throughout the country. She believes that with the hiring of more newly contracted teachers, the number of professionals at the beginning of their careers earning the minimum wage is growing. This leads to an average reduction in salaries. However, the director agrees that current earnings are not attractive for the profession. "We cannot say that there is a devaluation of salaries, but the current level is insufficient to attract the best high school students to the profession and thus improve education."

RAIS is a registry of the annual and mandatory declarations of all establishments in the country. Managed by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the data are the main sources of information on the formal labor market, being used by the government in the development of public policies.

* Mariana Tokarnia contributed to this report.

Edited by: Carolina Pimentel