WARSAW, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Raising the pay for teachers should be one of the most significant elements in Poland's education system reform, Poland's deputy PM and Education Minister Roman Giertych said Monday.

Giertych said some 2 billion zlotys (about 645 million U.S. dollars) were necessary to achieve this goal. "We have (allocated)6 percent more in next year's budget than in this year's," he said, according to reports from Poland's PAP news agency.

Giertych added that in his opinion, teachers' salaries were "dramatically low" in Poland, and the government viewed education reform as significant as the health service reform.

On Sunday, Giertych said that if there was no money for pay increases for teachers in 2007, the League of Polish Families, of which he is the leader, would vote against the budget. Enditem