The EHL has proposed raising teachers' minimum monthly salary for next year to €2,042. Kallas said that this would require tens of millions of additional funding, which cannot be guaranteed in the budget.

"Considering the education sector needs to make a total of nearly €80 million in cuts over the next three years, then it's clear that the budget situation today certainly can't accommodate salary raises to such an extent," she told ERR.

The minister has previously said that future salary negotiations would depend on the summer economic forecast. She noted that the outlook in the forecast produced this week was not encouraging, meaning that Estonia's economy is recovering more slowly than planned.

"Ultimately, what the potential increase in the minimum salary will shape up to be will still depend on the final composition of the state budget; I can't specify these numbers at this time," Kallas said.

"The state budget is facing a €2.2 billion deficit," she continued. "Reducing this deficit is one of the government's top priorities, because otherwise we'll be facing a situation over the next ten years where there is absolutely no way whatsoever we can raise teachers' salaries."

EHL chief Reemo Voltri said that the union will be given an overview of the minister's proposals at the negotiations to begin next week.

The union wants to establish salary increases for the next three years via an educational agreement, with the goal of having teachers' minimum salary equal the national average by the year 2027.

"The ideal would be to achieve this next year, but there's certainly room here for negotiation so that we can still gain assurances regarding how this will be achieved by 2027 at the latest," he said.

Negotiations over the educational agreement are slated to continue in the second half of next month. According to Voltri, agreements still need to be reached regarding the calculation of teachers' workloads and the teacher career model.

"This means a career model together with a salary model, so that a teacher truly can influence their income through their own self-development – that is definitely very important," he stressed.

Previous reports in the media have suggested that if no educational agreement is reached, then Kallas would step down as education minister. Kallas says this is not actually the case.

"The educational agreement has been a consequence of why teachers went on strike last year; it doesn't just involve teachers' minimum salary," she explained.

"Teachers very much went on strike over [their] workloads and working conditions, and these workload and working condition calculations and the career model that we'll be agreeing on in the educational agreement are my responsibility," Kallas stressed. "That I can reach an agreement with the parties [involved], and we can move on from there. That is my responsibility; I have never said that I would resign."

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