BUDAPEST — Hungary's teachers' unions have filed a petition to the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Budapest, demanding the government urgently reforms the education system and raise teachers' salaries.

Teachers, parents and students have been demonstrating for months. The government has shut down the Ministry of Education and incorporated it into the Ministry of Interior, which is headed by a former police officer.

After filing the petition on Saturday, thousands marched to parliament.

One teacher said she was demanding "freedom of education, an independent Ministry of Education and most of all a salary rise because there will be no young people who would take our place and continue teaching."

Another said: "We are demonstrating because our system of education can no longer be called a system of anything, it is a hot pile of mess as it is. It needs radical and comprehensive reforms."

President Orban has said that he'll only raise teachers' salaries if the EU releases funds that it has withheld over a row about democracy being eroded.

The EU accuses Hungary of weakening the rule of law. — Euronews