SECONDARY school students were aimlessly wondering through the streets of central Nicosia again yesterday. It was the second school day in succession that they had been allowed to leave their classrooms in order to attend a so-called political protest. If window-shopping and sitting in McDonald’s having a Big Mac and a milk-shake constitutes a political protest, then the mandarins of the Education Ministry have completely lost the plot.
What was the worthwhile protest/demonstration they were supposedly taking part in this time, with the blessing of the Education Ministry? Apparently they were demonstrating against the United States, so a few hundred of the thousands who left their schools stood outside the US embassy building for a while before heading to Makarios Avenue. It was the 30th anniversary of the uprising by students of the Athens Polytechnic against the military junta that ran Greece at the time.
Should we mention that the junta, as well as the Nixon administration that supported it, disappeared from the scene 29-and-a-half years ago? So against what was this misguided children’s demonstration? Perhaps the cultivation of anti-American sentiment has become part of the secondary school curriculum (a contribution to educational modernisation by the AKEL-backed government?) and the annual demonstration outside the embassy is the practical element of the course. For anti-US protest events to take place with the blessing of the Education Ministry is truly scandalous.
For a responsible Education Ministry there should be no legitimate reason for students to leave their classes during school hours. Yet the ministry seems to be actively encouraging this practice. Last Friday, there were no classes for secondary school children, because they had to take part in protests against the 20th anniversary of the unilateral declaration of independence in the north. The actual anniversary was on Saturday, but as there was no school on Saturday, they demonstrated on Friday, with the ministry’s full blessing! The demonstrations were attended by a couple of hundred children, while the rest again staged their political protests in the fast food eateries and other places in town at which teenagers hang out.
It was the third day in a row for which the secondary schools were closed – last Thursday they were on holiday because it was the Archbishop’s name-day. And then teachers complain that there is not enough time in the school-year to do the whole curriculum set by the ministry. A more responsible ministry would not accept the loss of school days for meaningless demonstrations, that students use as an excuse to hang out down town, especially given the tight schedules schools are working under.
The previous government made some half-hearted attempts to stop the demonstration culture at state schools, occasionally warning students against leaving their classes. The present government though, is run by AKEL which has always encouraged the demonstration culture, not to mention the cultivation of anti-US sentiment. It will be happy if by the time they graduate, all school-children have become anti-US activists, educated in the art of political protest. And if they have no time to learn anything else at school, who cares?
