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James wrote:

Salaries for teachers in Brazil have always been extremely low, here the profession is undervalued. In the public school system teachers rarely earn over R$1500 per month anywhere in Brazil.

If you're talking about language schools, they are even worse. They pay near-slave wages that range anywhere from R$25 to R$30 per hour of actual classroom time depending on where you may be in Brazil, no benefits and no payment for prep time or correcting homework (which must be done on the teacher's own time).

Cheers,
James聽 聽Expat-blog Experts Team

Yes, teachers are ridiculously underpaid here. My Portuguese teacher told me that before she started teaching private classes, she worked at a language school for a year back in 2011, and they paid her R$12 per hour of actual classroom time and R$20 per hour if she taught at a company.聽 聽 I'm sure that the hourly rates have increased since 2011, but even so, I agree with you, James, that these are practically slave wages for teachers.

I personally know that one of the private schools in my city pays its teachers around R$6,000/month as a starting salary. I thought that this was also "low" until I discovered that my friend, who is an assistant professor at the University of Sao Paulo, makes R$10,000/month. (Granted, she'll receive great retirement benefits, but even so...) I understand that in Brazil, these salaries are considered to be "generous," especially if you compare them to the salaries of public school teachers. However, after taxes, what are any of these teachers left with? When an educated person is deciding on a career path, what incentive does he or she have to teach when the pay is so low compared to other professions? It's no wonder that the educational system here is such a mess.