A MASSIVE row erupted at the House Education Committee yesterday over the right of teachers to speak to the media with Head of Higher Education Zena Poullis blaming “politicians and cronyism” for the “disruption in schools”.
EDEK MP Yiorgos Varnavas in turn called for the Education Minister to start a disciplinary investigation into the methods used by Poullis to smear teachers”. He said “terroristic pressure” was being used on teachers to make them withdraw public criticism they had made about the Ministry’s perceived shortcomings.
The Committee met to consider an amendment to the law governing the behaviour of civil servants which would remove a paragraph that – according to committee chairman Nicos Tornaritis – prevented any member of teaching staff from talking in the media without prior permission from their superiors.
The amendment was tabled by the Ministry itself, following a recommendation by Ombudswoman Iliana Nicolaou that the “offending paragraph” infringed teachers’ freedom of speech. Nicolaou had submitted a report on complaints made to her office by three teachers who had faced disciplinary investigations instigated by Poullis.
The investigations followed their public criticism of the way in which the current education reform was being tightly controlled by senior officials, which – they argued – ruled out any input from grassroots teachers.
Listing a number of instances where teaching staff faced various forms of pressure from senior officials after voicing criticism, DISY MP Andreas Themistocleous referred to “a series of events and proof that the AKEL coalition and its ministers, especially the Education Minister and his close associates, do not want and do not tolerate any kind of criticism or any difference of opinion”.
The three teachers whose complaints were considered by the Ombudswoman’s Office had been invited to give their views to the House committee.
Poullis took them to task before the committee for criticising her in press articles published under their own names. The teachers had referred to what they considered to be Poullis’ “old-fashioned and anachronistic practices” at the Education Ministry.
Poullis also told the committee that there were outstanding disciplinary charges against the three teachers, something that the three vociferously denied.
The row continued after the committee meeting, when teacher Pantelis Nicolaides gave a statement. He held up his personal file, pointing to the fact that it described him as “unethical and dishonest, in Mrs Poullis’ words”. He added: “Two worlds are clashing inside the Education Ministry: one which wants a modern education system…and the anachronistic system in place, which today is represented by Mrs Poulis”.
Poullis then interrupted him, shouting: “How many disciplinary charges were in your file from before I was in charge? How many other people brought charges against you?” After trading allegation and counter-allegation, with Poullis shouting he had “fifteen-plus” charges against him in his file, Nicolaides said that “every one of them had been levelled by Poullis, and not one charge was upheld by the Ministry”.
Making her own statement to reporters, Poullis said that she had not been invited to attend the committee hearing, and had only found out about it through the press. She said that she had then been invited by committee chairman Tornaritis, adding that her own employers did not seem willing to defend her and she was already facing a charge of libel.
Poullis said that since the time she had assumed her current position, she had faced a “relentless war waged by a small group of teachers who had committed disciplinary offences”, adding that “some people are confusing mouthing abuse with freedom of speech, which I respect. But all three who came here to shoot me down have disciplinary offences against them…For two and a half years now, they have been insulting me on a daily basis in the most scurrilous way.”
