A RIGHT-wing faction within teachers’ union OELMEK yesterday opposed a union decision to take radical measures in protest at the government’s failure to implement a promotions agreement.
Secondary schoolteachers’ union OELMEK this week vowed to act unilaterally and force the implementation of the agreement in question from Monday next week. The union charged said the Education Ministry would “be responsible for the chaos that will be caused”, and threatened to “step up” action if necessary.
The Pancyprian Pupils’ Parents Association yesterday insisted that the two sides had not discussed the matter through yet.
The changes teachers are implementing include reducing the teaching hours of teachers with six or seven years of experience from 24 to 22 and those with 13 to 15 years of experience from 22 to 20.
OELMEK also warned that assistant heads and teachers of specialised subjects would not perform all of their duties.
The decision has been passed by a slender majority vote of OELEMEK’s council.
OELMEK says the agreement reached with the ministry earlier this year provided for these reductions in teachers’ workload.
The union also announced last week that school inspectors would be denied access to schools, protesting at the fact that a new teachers’ evaluation system was not in place yet.
But in an announcement yesterday, the union’s right-wing faction Allayi positioned itself against the decision, which it fears will “lead to dangerous adventures”.
The right-wing faction warned that OELMEK’s move would put its members’ salaries on the line and turn parents against teachers, “since children will be the ones who will suffer from this”.
Education Minister Ouranios Ioannides on Tuesday branded OELMEK’s threats illegal and anarchic, and threatened that teachers would suffer pay cuts if they went ahead and taught fewer hours.
OELMEK’s secretary general Sotiris Charalambous hit back, accusing the ministry of “masterminding the sell-off of public education”.
Ioannides insists his ministry has demonstrated “religious respect” for the agreement.
Pancyprian Pupils’ Parents Association chairman Elias Demetriou said yesterday the two sides had not exhausted all means of negotiation.
“The agreement in question is pending parliamentary approval and deputies are still on holiday. So the problem is partly procedural and this chaos could have been prevented,” Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail.
He refrained from taking sides in the dispute, but complained: “children are always the ones suffering in these cases.”
Demetriou is due to meet with OELMEK’s leadership today to address the problem.
He said he had already discussed the matter with Ioannides.
Teachers returned to schools on Monday after the summer holiday. Pupils return to school next Wednesday.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
