Teachers under fire for playing stock market during class

By Jean Christou

THE EDUCATION Ministry has promised strict disciplinary measures at schools, but this time it’s teachers who will be at the receiving end if they continue to check the stock market during working hours.

Reports that secondary school teachers have been using mobile phones during class to talk to their brokers, surfing the Internet and watching television to check share prices in the middle of the school day have prompted an investigation by the Ministry.

A spokesman at the Ministry said yesterday that reports had been coming in over the past 15 days that teachers had been pursuing their private interests at the expense of lessons.

“We have received reports from various sources, including school inspectors, that some teachers are doing this,” a Ministry spokesman said. “It is rather unusual.”

The spokesman said that a circular warning teachers about such activities had already been issued to both primary and secondary schools.

“From now on, if we find it happening again, there will be disciplinary measures,” he spokesman said.

Education Minister Ouranios Ioannides said on Sunday it was only a small percentage of teachers that was flouting the rules. “But it has to be nipped in the bud,” he said.

Parents’ Association chairman Elias Demetriou said yesterday they had complained about what was going on. He said they had received a specific report about a teacher in Larnaca who was calling his broker on a mobile phone during classes.

“Surely under teachers’ terms of employment this type of behaviour is not allowed,” Demetriou said.

“There are specific rules and regulations covering employment contracts which must be imposed.”

Demetriou said the parents were counting on the Ministry to bring the appropriate measures against offending teachers.

Despite repeated attempts, representatives of the secondary teachers union Oelmek could not be reached yesterday, but Sophocles Charalambous, chairman of the primary teachers union

Poed, said they had received no reports about elementary teachers acting in this fashion.

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