THE HOUSE Education Committee yesterday postponed a visit to the English School in light of ongoing tensions between parents and teachers.
Committee Chairman Nikos Tornaritis said the meeting, which had been scheduled for yesterday, had been called off to give parents and the school time to sort out their differences.
“The House Education Committee is not a court and nor is it about to act as judge and jury,” he said.
The DISY deputy said the Committee had adopted a tactic of “wait and see” so as to limit fuelling the ongoing friction at the Nicosia fee-paying school.
“If you will remember we discussed the issue during a three and a half hour meeting. We concluded that we would visit the school in two or three weeks. We said we hoped this time would be used to calm things down,” said Tornaritis.
On February 17 parents, teachers and pupils were called to parliament to discuss an issue that was fast turning the prestigious school into a laughing stock as parents and teachers hurled accusations at each other through the media. The crux of the problem is that a group of parents feel the school is being used to promote certain political views by a group of “left wing” teachers under the pretext of encouraging reconciliation between Greek and Turkish Cypriot pupils.
A group calling themselves the English School Parents and Alumni Initiative have accused some English School teachers of “imposing their left-wing ideas on their children and are being over-zealous in their desire to instil multiculturalism in the school”. In turn members of the Initiative have been branded “nationalists”, “bigots” and “hysterics” by teachers who threatened legal action when the parents set up a “slanderous” website criticising them.
The marathon Education Committee meeting resolved nothing apart from all involved agreeing to take part in a civilised discussion to find common ground. The school was given a fortnight by the Committee, after which it said it would visit the establishment to check on its progress.
But following contact with the school the Committee decided to postpone its visit.
“In light of the ongoing tensions and not want to act as courtroom judges we decided to call off the visit for the time being to see what happens… Various people [from both sides] have expressed a wish to talk to me and other deputies [about the ongoing strife] so we decided to give them the opportunity to sort out their problems themselves before going to visit the school,” Tornaritis said.
He said there was a possibility the issue would be recalled to the House for further discussion.
The deputy said he was saddened by the internal conflict that had escalated over the past several months and that all it achieved was to affect the children of the parents involved.
Tornaritis added that this was not the first time the Committee would be visiting the school. He said deputies frequently visited private and public schools and universities as means to having a clearer picture about how the establishments operated and any difficulties they might face.
