An overwhelming majority of striking employees in primary and secondary schools rejected the pay rise which was offered by the government and therefore their industrial action will go on, trade union leaders said on Friday.

They informed a news conference that 95.26% of the striking teachers in primary schools who went to a referendum and 88.93% of the striking teachers in secondary schools voted against the proposed model for the wage rise.

The referendum was held on Wednesday and Thursday after recent marathon negotiations in which the government offered the striking unions a pay increase of 10.4% in 2020. However, it did not accept the unions’ demand to increase the job complexity index by 6.11%.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic did not wish to say directly whether the government would ask for a ban on the ongoing school strike, saying that he would wait for information from union leaders about the result of the teachers’ referendum on the government’s offer.

Education Minister Blazenka Divjak announced that on Friday the government would release instructions for the compensation of lessons lost due to the ongoing strike of primary and secondary school teachers, and that compensation models would depend on whether teachers would accept the government’s offer to end the strike.

“Today we prepared plans and scenarios for the situation in which students have lost 15 days of lessons and also for cases with more days lost,” Divjak said.

Teachers have been on strike for 35 days.