Kalo Chorio school to stay closed

CHILDREN will abstain from classes at Kalo Chorio primary school until the demands of the parents association are met, it was announced yesterday.

The parents and children are fervently opposed to the removal of a teacher from the school and the merging of the third and fourth grades in a single classroom.

Yesterday’s protest was the first whole day missed by the students, after having skipped two classes on Tuesday as a ‘warning’.

Although merging small classes at rural primary schools is commonplace, the parents association and the village leaders of the five communities served by the school claim that the practice is discriminatory towards village residents.

“The school will be closed all day today and tomorrow and we will not allow the teachers to go in. We will continue the abstention from classes until the Ministry changes its position. We are willing to pay for the teacher’s salary ourselves if the Ministry is not able to do so,” said Kalo Chorio village leader, Nikolaos Kakopsitos.

Kakopsitos also informed a School Inspector sent by the Education Ministry that dynamic action will continue until the community’s demands are met. The ministry’s decision to remove one of the teachers came as a result of the merging of the two classes that would make the extra teacher unnecessary.

As students from both classes would share one teacher, their teaching time would in practice be halved, although the teacher would cover the same material and syllabus.

Kalo Chorio primary school has a total of 55 pupils from the village and four surrounding communities Louvaras, Ayios Costandinos, Ayios Pavlos and Zoopigi.

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