POED appeased by deputy’s promise

PRIMARY school teachers’ union POED decided yesterday to suspend further strike action next week after a pledge by House Education Committee head Nicos Tornaritis to release funds to hire supply teachers.

In protest over the lack of substitute staff, primary school teachers islandwide yesterday kept pupils from attending the last lesson period of the day.

They were backed by the Pancyprian Organisation of Primary School Parents, who believe that the situation should have been dealt with two months ago.

“There are pupils who for two weeks now may not have had a full lesson,” said POED head, Fylios Fylaktou, adding that in some schools three out of ten teachers may be absent due to maternity leave or sickness.

Following statements made by Tornaritis, and the House Finance Committee’s deputy chairman Angelos Votsis, Fylaktou said they expect to have the funds released on Thursday and begin solving the problem as of next Friday.

Tornaritis has pledged to have teachers exempted from the public service hiring freeze.

“I consider this to be a serious problem and I hope that we will all get ourselves in the right frame of mind… so that schools can return to normal,” said Tornaritis.

Votsis said that it was clear that the problem would be solved by next week. He said it had been unnecessary for pupils to have missed out on a lesson yesterday. 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.