Teachers concern over call to report sub-standard colleagues

TEACHERS have expressed their concern after the Education Minister addressed a memo to all school headmasters urging them to report ‘problematic’ teachers.
According to yesterday’s Phileleftheros, minister Pefkios Georgiades sent the memo on September 12, stressing that “according to legislation and evaluation regulations, as school headmasters, you have the legal responsibility to locate and indicate through your reports, basic information that concern the sufficiency of your schools teaching staff”.

But the president of teachers’ union OELMEK, Iacovos Iacovou, yesterday expressed his disapproval of the minister’s memo – not just in concern to its contents but also to Georgiades’ readiness to make it known to the media.

“In such matters, teachers must be shown respect. Memos such as this are strongly rejected by OELMEK,” said Iacovou.

The union head pointed out that if any teachers’ were found to be “problematic” or “inadequate”, this could be dealt with legally via the Law for Teachers.

“We recognise that there may be a small number of teachers who are suffering from health problems and that their work could be seen as inadequate due to this, but this can be rectified with private dialogues, away from the media,” Iacovou pointed out.
According to the memo, extra attention should be paid to teachers who are employed on a trial basis or on contract, so that inadequate teachers can be prevented from settling in to the system.

The Minister said it was a myth that the responsibility for spotting unsuitable teachers fell on school supervisors. The role of headmasters in combating this problem is vast, said Georgiades, as they are in a position to know first-hand how satisfactory their staff’s work is.

“Everybody must realise that the ministry cannot deal with this problem without the co-operation of school headmasters,” he told Phileleftheros.