BIG UPROAR and collective beating of breasts followed the impromptu visit of deputies to a big lyceum in Larnaca, which did not have enough chairs for the students. Apparently, the students of the chairless classes were told to bring their own chairs – like they bring pencils, a sharpener, rubber and ruler.
This may have posed a safety problem for kids who cycled to the school, as they could not put the chair in their schoolbag and carry it on their back. Having to carry a chair when you are walking to school is bad enough but when you are cycling it becomes a road safety issue. And presumably, each student had to take his chair back home every day so it would not be stolen.
Many students did not bother taking their own chair and sat on their desk instead – there was no shortage of desks at the school – because this gave them a pretty sound excuse for ignoring the teacher when he or she asked them to write things down. Teachers could get round the familiar excuses – that a student did not have a pencil or did not bring his exercise book – but when he insists that he needs to sit on a chair to be able to write, he does have a point.
Did the lyceum have a policy on what type of chair students could bring with them? If a student used his dad’s diplokambino to bring in a nice, comfy, reclining armchair would he be allowed to sit on it in class? No circular stipulating how uncomfortable the chair a student brought in should be had been sent by the Education Ministry.
Why did the school not resolve the problem by hiring a few hundred of those orange plastic chairs that are taken to village weddings? It could have secured a very competitive price as the supplier has no use for them during the week. At the weekend, when he needed them for a wedding party, the school did not need them.
Finding a practical solution is probably too much to ask of the head-teacher of the school or the ministry mandarins. I am sure the Cypriot entrepreneurial spirit will resolve the issue by the next school year if education ministry does not. We will have stalls on the streets outside schools, selling chairs and folding stools for kids who cannot be bothered to bring one from home.
THE FUSS forced our minister of education Pefkios Georgiades to get off his back-side (yes, he has a chair to sit on) and visit the lyceum for an on-the-spot inspection. His immediate response was truly commendable, and he ordered an investigation about the chair shortage.
He did, however, complain that the fuss created by deputies about the poor state of repair of the lyceum’s classrooms was exaggerated. Only a few of the classrooms were in need of repairs, while the rest were in satisfactory condition, he protested, after his visit. He had given instruction for some of the building repairs to start immediately.
And no, he did not ask the kids to bring in building material and tools for the repairs, presumably because a sack of cement is too heavy to carry all the way to school, and cement mixer, even though its has wheels, can only be pulled by a car.
AS AN ARCHITECT, Pefkios immediately knew what work needed to be done – and how long it would take – for the lyceum building to be brought up to scratch. Shame he does not exhibit the same level of knowledge and decisiveness when it comes to educational matters.
He is not too keen on tackling educational problems, which is why he has delegated this responsibility to parents and the students. The measures for radical reform of the education system, as has been reported, are being decided by committees consisting of parents, students, teachers and any member of the public who has an opinion on how geometry should be taught.
The brilliant plan for educational reform by the semi-educated and clueless members of the public has given Pefkios more free time, allowing him to have lunch out every day, but it also has a downside. The great democratic ideas of making schools more accountable and giving parents a big say in their kids’ education peddled by Pefkios so he can have an easy life, has made life hell for schools.
School heads are now spending most of their time looking into absurd complaints by parents. Most of the complaints are against teachers not giving a high enough mark to Costakis, or for telling off Yiannakis. Teachers should tread carefully, because one of the Pefkios’ most radical reforms envisages students and parents having a say about a teacher’s promotion.
NOBODY took the least bit notice of our impassioned plea last Sunday for information about what references our side wanted in the EU counter-declaration. Of course, by Wednesday it did not matter, because our Ethnarch had grown tired of his ‘whatever it is, I’m against it,’ policy and agreed to the final draft prepared by our Turk-loving, evil demons. By then, even Greece had lost its patience and abandoned us, siding with the other 23 member-states in agreeing to the text.
Back home, the bash-patriots were pulling their hair and screaming on the radio stations because our Ethnarch had not exercised the right to veto, while Zeus protégé and leader of the fledgling party Euroco, Demetris Syllouris, came up with the sound-bite of the week: “Vetoes are for the small (countries),” which was a direct response to the Ethnarch’s assertion that “vetoes are not for the small”. Surely, his party, which is pretty small, should have vetoed the Ethnarch’s decision not to veto the start of Turkey’s accession negotiations.
The other certifiable bash-patriot Giorgos Perdikis, yesterday called a press conference to lament the lost opportunity, but made a constructive suggestion – we should demand that the start of accession talks be put back to December. This shows the man’s intellectual power in all its glory.
Our government did not have the clout to impose the wording it wanted in a meaningless declaration of no practical significance, but Perdikis thinks it would able to postpone the start date of accession talks, which had been unanimously agreed last December. We all support the right to free speech, but how much better off we would be if people like Perdikis did not exercise it.
WHEN IT comes to organising events, the Turkish Cypriots have a thing or two to learn. It seems whenever they try to organise something big it falls through. For weeks, the north had been advertising the September 18 concert by Jose Carreras at Salamis. When the day of concert arrived, it was announced that the event was cancelled because Carreras was ill and could not perform.
And who was behind the cancellation? According to the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Halkin Sesi, we Greek Cypriots had pulled the plug on the show by not allowing the tenor’s private jet to land in Larnaca. The Turks seem to overestimate the power and competence of our government. This is a government that asks kids to bring their own chair to school because ensuring an adequate number of chairs for the students is too difficult to organise.
EUPRO, the Mickey Mouse association set up by Brits in the north in order to defend their ‘right’ to live in Greek Cypriot properties has not had much success in convincing people that it is safe to invest in stolen property. The association is the brainchild of Donald Crawford – the archetypal, pompous old Brit, who is attracted to the north, like so many of his ilk, because they can feel superior to the natives – who vowed to set up a war chest in order to stop Greek Cypriots taking legal action against them.
The other objective of Eupro was to encourage foreigners to buy stolen Greek Cypriot properties in the north. This noble objective was dealt a deathly blow last weekend by the prestigious weekly magazine, The Spectator, which is a bastion of Turk-loving British conservatism. The mag had a property supplement, in which it warned readers to “think a thousand times before you put your money
in the Turkish north”. It added: “If you do buy in the North, the dream could easily become a nightmare of title disputes and lawsuits”.
Is it any surprise that the crazy crusade by a crude cretin like Crawford has no credibility?
DISSENT is spreading among the AKEL rank and file and members of the leadership have been touring the plantation trying to win back the support of disaffected Akelites. As part of this campaign, the Commissar’s lieutenant and Tassos disciple, Nicos Katsourides was sent to Paphos to talk to a branch of the party unfaithful.
In order to bring the sheep back to the fold, the scheming Katsourides, resorted to a little Cold War rhetoric, presumably to remind the sheep that they are united in their hatred of the evil American capitalist wolf. He told the comrades that President Bush knew that Katrina would hit the Mississippi states well in advance, but chose to do nothing. And he sent no help to the stricken areas for 12 days, because he was not bothered about the US underclass being wiped out!
I think his message was that because Bush was an evil capitalist, Akelites should do as the Commissar tells them.
THE AKEL Central Committee met on Thursday and decided to propose to the 20th party conference, as part of its drive for renewal and modernization, that deputies will be entitled to a maximum of three terms in parliament. But any celebrations that Commissar Christofias and Katsourides would not be standing in next year’s parliamentary elections, proved premature.
The Commissar explained that the proposal would not apply to members of the leadership. One member stood up and suggested that as the spirit of renewal was in the air, the Central Committee should also propose that the party’s General-secretary stepped down after four terms. For his bravery, the member was rewarded with a public reprimand by General-secretary Christofias himself.
What sort of Akelite was he, that he did not know that there was one rule for the leadership and another one for the members. And to be fair Christofias has not even completed 20 years as the shepherd-in-chief.
FORMER defence minister Socratis Hasikos opened a can of worms by suggesting that military service be reduced from two years to one, provoking a massive onslaught by the certifiable bash-patriots of the pro-government camp. What has really annoyed the parties of the government alliance is that his proposal is extremely popular with parents and youths.
Hasikos has said the shortfall in manpower that the reduction in the duration of military service would create could be covered by the hiring of some 3,000 men on a contractual basis. He did not say where the professional soldiers would come from. To keep the National Guard’s wage cost down, we could consider hiring Sri Lankans and Pakistanis.
Of course, not everyone welcomed the idea. In fact the listeners of Lazaros Mavros’, patriotic morning radio show were outraged with Hasikos’ treachery. One listener called in to say the following: “How dare Hasikos talk about the military service, when last year on a national day, October 28, he was at the checkpoint to go to the occupied north instead of being at one of the anniversary events organised. I saw him later in a shop in the north,” said the listener.
“Why were you in the north?” asked Lazaros, who has become the arbiter of patriotic correctness. “Why shouldn’t I be? I never served as defence minister,” responded the listener.
IT IS NOT only sports journalists who specialise in statements of the obvious. Our Government Spokesman, Cyprus Goldenmouth, also possesses this enviable skill.
On Monday, he was asked to comment about the result of the German elections and had this to say: “The Cypriot government fully respects the verdict of the sovereign people of Germany.” Was there ever any possibility that the Cypriot government would not respect the German election result?
Who is worse? Cyprus who uttered this nonsense or the Tass News Agency, which considered it important enough to report?
