Indeks cijenjenosti učitelja - Teacher Appreciation Index

The aim of this paper is to determine the actual material status of teachers in the Republic of Croatia from 2000 to 2025, eliminating the illusion of nominal wage growth and the effects of inflation. For this purpose, the Teacher Appreciation Index is defined as the ratio between the salary of a teacher with ten years of experience (excluding promotions) and the average net salary in the country. Analysis of corrected official data reveals a concerning trend of status erosion: the Index has fallen from levels above 1.00 at the beginning of the millennium to a historic low of 0.91 in 2024. In other words, a teacher's salary is currently almost 10% lower than the national average. Furthermore, a survey conducted on a sample of 2,414 respondents reveals a deep gap between reality and public expectations; even citizens who do not support trade union actions believe this ratio should be 1.30. The paper concludes that the current trend encourages negative selection of personnel and proposes pegging education salaries to a fixed Index of 1.25 as a necessary step to preserve the quality of the educational system.