OPENING a school in the Larnaca district on Tuesday, President Christofias boastfully told his audience the following: “It is no coincidence that today Cyprus spends the most money in the whole EU, as a percentage of GDP, on education.” This is a fact, but it does not say anything about the quality of our expensive education system.
The question any concerned citizen should ask is whether we are getting good value for the money we are spending. The president was being either naďve or disingenuous in suggesting that spending a lot of money on education was a good thing in itself. Then again, all our politicians take this simplistic approach when advertising the supposed achievements of a government.
When governments spend a lot of money on tourism, education, agriculture, health or defence they conclude that they have been doing a proper job. It might just as well be throwing the money down a big hole in the ground, because nobody cares if it was being put to good use and whether the taxpayer was getting value for money. Such considerations do not enter the minds of our big-spending politicians.
Logically, if we spend more money, as a percentage of GDP, than all EU member states our state education should be attaining among the highest standards in Europe and our students should be in the top brackets. However, this is not case. When Cypriot state school children take part in international surveys testing knowledge in a range of subjects, they score disappointing marks, finishing closer to the bottom of the lists. These are not freak results, because students also score badly in end of year state exams in Cyprus – a paltry 50 per cent pass their Greek finals at state schools.
From this, we can conclude that the taxpayer is not getting value for the money and that we should expect much higher standards. We are not saying that Cyprus must be producing armies of intellectuals and scientists, but we should demand an end to the present low standards which compare so unfavourably with students from countries spending much less than us on education.
The main problem is that the bulk of the money spent on education goes on teachers’ wages. Cyprus’ state school teachers are among the best-paid in the EU and the same applies to the academics of the University of Cyprus which takes a sizable chunk of the education budget. The schools’ pay-roll and construction of the odd new school take up most of the money allocated to education and very little is left to invest in teaching aids, science laboratories or the introduction of modern learning methods.
Spending most of the education budget on teachers’ wages would not be so deplorable if the state hired the highest-achieving graduates as teachers and wanted to reward them well. But the sad truth is that anyone with a degree is eligible to become a teacher so long as they are prepared to wait for their appointment. Graduates can be totally disinterested in their subject, lack motivation and have no commitment to teaching, but thanks to the waiting list, which does not discriminate between good and bad graduates, they will be appointed.
Our recruitment system does not only hire the mediocre and uncommitted, who are looking for an easy life, it also rewards them handsomely. Proof that children are being badly let down by their teachers is the very high demand for afternoon private lessons. This has become a big industry, with all state school students, who want to do well academically and enter a good university, forced into having afternoon tuition. So in addition to the state expenditure on education there are also the many millions being spent by parents on afternoon lessons because state schools are offering a poor service.
In a nutshell, we pay premium rates for a third-rate, state education that has been consistently letting down children. This is what should be occupying the government, instead of making its smug and meaningless boast about spending the most money in the EU on education. The truth of the matter is that we are spending far too much on teachers’ pay, and children are receiving a lousy service in return.
