THERE WAS next to nothing in the World Bank reports about Cyprus’ appallingly poor state education system that we did not already know. However, the reports were welcome as they gave a comprehensive account of all the weaknesses of public education clearly explaining what was being done wrong as well as the failure of the authorities to put things right.
This paper has written about the glaring weaknesses of state education for many years, continually complaining that school children were being scandalously let down by a dysfunctional system that was designed by unions and politicians with the sole purpose of serving the interests of indolent graduates posing as teachers and education bureaucrats.
The concept of offering children a high standard of education never entered the thinking of policy-makers or the politicians who were content to keep the teaching unions happy as the members represented a significant number of votes. And when elections loomed, the party in government would present figures to show that it had increased its spending on education, never mentioning the fact that the extra expenditure was being wasted on pay increases for teachers, who are the second highest-paid in the EU.
Public expenditure on the education sector, according to the World Bank report was 7.8 per cent of GDP, “high by international and European standards”. Annual public and private expenditure is €9,145 per pupil, significantly higher than the EU average of €6,900, said the report, without taking into account the many millions of euro spent by parents every year on afternoon private lessons. There is no data on the money spent on private lessons, a highly lucrative industry, the income from which is not declared as state teachers offering this service are violating their work conditions.
But despite spending big on education, Cypriot students’ results in international tests (PISA and TIMSS) were significantly below the OECD average for reading, maths and science. These results, said the World Bank, “were below what might be expected given the country’s level of economic development and investments in education”. It admitted it was “difficult to draw any concrete conclusions because of a lack of learning achievement data”, but “it does appear that high expenditures on education are not translating into improved learning outcomes for children.”
But they are translating into constantly improving living standards for teachers, irrespective of how badly they perform in their job. Scandalously, graduates are hired as teachers indiscriminately, thanks to the criminal waiting-list system (until recently without any teacher-training); they are promoted according to seniority, irrespective of their job performance, and they are only evaluated after 10 years in the job, regardless of the harm they may have caused students in that time. And of course, the unions have always resisted any attempt of introducing any formal assessments of student learning, because this would reflect badly on the teachers.
Would any business survive, if it hired people on a first-come-first-serve basis – as long as they had the required degree – never gave them any job training, promoted them to a managerial position because of their years of service and did not bother evaluating their job performance for 10 years? Of course not, it would be bankrupt in no time. So why does Cyprus society consider these insane methods of running state education perfectly acceptable? Why is it considered good practice to entrust the education of our children to anyone with a degree, with nobody bothering to check whether they are able to teach, not to mention their commitment to education?
What has been done with state education is criminal. For decades, the well-being of lazy, overpaid and under-worked teachers has been placed above that of the children they are supposed to educate. There has been a conspiracy of silence among politicians, teachers, union leaders, government officials and parents, even though they are all aware that Cypriot children are being badly let down by the woeful education system they created.
Occasional attempts at changing things have met with the opposition of union bosses and threats of strikes. The World Bank noted this in its report. “While experts have made substantial suggestions on how to reform the institutional organisation of education sector, teacher policies, evaluation and assessment mechanisms and the curricula, only the curriculum reform has been carried out.” This was because it did not touch the ‘rights’ of the teachers.
We would hope the World Bank reports, which were lambasted by unions and AKEL before they had even been made public, would spark some change, but the signs are not good. Asked to comment on the reports on Friday, Education Minister Costas Kadis’ main concern was to reassure teachers that “proposals for measures are not binding”.
