Russian teachers’ salaries are to double within three months - but to between only pound;30 and pound;60 a month.

However, for the first time, more money will be spent next year on education than on defence, which is budgeted at pound;5 billion.

Monthly salaries, which can be as low as pound;10 in some parts of Russia, will rise to between pound;30 andpound;60 in an initiative to help keep teachers in the profession, Vladimir Filippov, education minister, said.

Now, fewer than half of all teacher training college graduates go on to teach. The salary rise is part of a wide-ranging package of reforms for schools and universities, funded from both national and regional budgets, at a cost of pound;1 billion over the next four years.

Vyacheslav Sashenkov, the head teacher of a secondary school in central Russia’s Volga river region, who earns the equivalent of pound;50 a month, said: “The new salaries won’t enable me to recruit new staff - which I would like to do - but it means I shall be able to keep current staff.”

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