$100,000 a year: teacher salaries in Canada compared to Russia

Teachers in Russia are poor, don't you agree? And not only in Russia, my mother was a teacher in Ukraine and she earned pennies. Let's compare how much teachers earn in Canada.

I recently came across an interesting chart. The government of Ontario, where I live, publishes a list of people who have earned over $100,000 CAD in a year, that's over $8000 CAD per month — even for Canada that's a lot. This list lists the names of the people, the field of activity and what organization they work for. That is an anonymous statistic, but real people who work for budget money and receive money from Canadian taxpayers.

It is a pity that there is no such list for Russia, it was interesting to see how much the highest-paid teachers are paid. But I will come back to the comparison.

Teacher salaries in Canada

I think teachers in Canada are definitely better off than in Russia, but it's still interesting to see how much of a difference there is.

Educators are valued here. The average salary of a Elementary school teacher across Canada is over $59,000 CAD a year, or about $5,000 a month, and a Middle school teacher is over $64,500 CAD a year, or about $5500 a month. By comparison, programmers on average earn $69,000 a year, which is very little more than teachers.

For example, with $5000 CAD a month you could rent a two-bedroom townhouse near downtown Toronto and still have half your salary left over. Or you could rent something simpler and save for your own home. All in all, the prospects are great.

Highest salary

Back to the list of workers who make more than $100,000 CAD per year. There's a separate table for teachers for 2019, and there are as many as 198 pages and over 14,500 teachers. And the teachers are only school teachers, there are many more college and university teachers on the full list.

Are you wondering what was the highest-ever salary for a teacher in 2019? $148,000 CAD. Honestly, I'm shocked myself. That's the amount some woman, Rosaria, who works as a regular teacher at a Catholic school near Toronto received.

Salaries of teachers in Russia

Now for the most interesting part — teachers' salaries in Russia. In fact, it turned out to be much harder to find truthful statistics than for Canada. If you look at the official, from Rosstat, there are such figures, 30,000 or 40,000 rubles per month, in Moscow at all about 100,000. But people often say that the official statistics cannot be trusted.

So I looked up unofficial. Here, for example, the website trud.com writes that the salary of a secondary school teacher in Russia is 25,000 rubles per month, and that of an elementary school is 29,000 rubles. There statistics are compiled on the basis of vacancies that are posted on the site, you can probably believe it.

But there is more sad data. The news portal Russkaya gazeta in 2020 published an article surveying teachers, and it says that in some cities the salary is only 12,500 rubles a month. I just can't imagine how you can live on that kind of money.

To make it clear, let me give the same example as with Toronto. According to trud.com, a teacher in Moscow earns on average about 36,500 rubles a month. I looked up the cost of housing... and a one-room apartment in an old house, with not very good repairs and far from the centre can be rented for 30,000. You only have money left over for food, and that's not a fact.

Immigration for teachers

Can a teacher immigrate to Canada? Yes, of course, but you cannot work in this profession right away because it is a licensed one.

Let me explain how this works. If you are a young teacher with good English, you can apply to immigrate to Canada, that is, apply for permanent residency. After going through the immigration process, you can change your profession if you wish. No one will force you to work as a teacher. But, if you want to continue working as a teacher in Canada, you will need to get a licence. The licences are different for each province.

I have interview with Victoria, who got a job in Canada as an educator. This profession is also licensed, and Vika even got licenses from two provinces while in Ukraine. So the license is not a reason to refuse immigration.

If you need help with your move to Canada, please contact our company. We employ qualified consultants, who will find you a suitable immigration program and help with the paperwork. By the way, to work legally in Canada, immigration consultant also need a license. Our specialists have them.

Alex Pavlenko, Founder of Immigrant.Today