IT WAS ABOUT time that parents started collectively taking a stand about the poor state of public education which has always served the needs and interests teachers. Last week, there was a breakthrough with the organisation representing parents’ associations of state secondary schools taking an active part in the ongoing debate about educational reform and demanding its views were heard.
Until now state education was run by teaching unions, whose priority was to secure the easiest possible working life for their members, and education ministry officials that took their orders from politicians, whose only concern was to keep union bosses happy. It was therefore no big surprise that we have a dysfunctional state education system that offers children a poor education, but generously rewards teachers for shoddy teaching. Cyprus has the second highest-paid secondary school teachers in the EU but Cypriot students are consistently among the worst-performing in international tests.
But last week, organised parents finally said they would no longer accept this unacceptable state of affairs. Their association issued a strongly worded announcement that said: “We have responsibility for the great tolerance we have shown all these years, believing that education ministry officials and teachers, as experts, knew better.”
Representatives of the association also appeared on radio shows to explain the concerns of parents and what they expected from state schools. They slammed the ministry and unions for focusing the reform debate on teaching hours and demanded that inadequate teachers were removed from classrooms, insisting this was a red line.
They quite rightly questioned the ministry’s absurd decision, under pressure from the union, to give full-time jobs to all teachers on contract, regardless of their work performance. It was a much-needed challenge to the union’s way of doing things – no matter how poor a teacher was, they still had the right to a teaching job, regardless of the harm caused in the classroom. Nothing illustrates this despicable attitude better than the criminal waiting-list appointment system, which hires graduates as teachers indiscriminately, without any interview or test. The secondary teachers’ union OELMEK narrowly voted to accept the education minister’s proposal for its abolition in 2018 – but this still means dozens of inadequate teachers could be hired over the next three years.
Parents have attacked both this and the seniority principle, demanding the introduction of a work-evaluation system as well as regular training for teachers. As in the rest of the public sector there is no proper evaluation system, all teachers receiving top marks for job performance which means promotions are based on seniority while ability/hard work/commitment are ignored. Unions want all their members treated as equals so that they are all entitled to big annual pay rises, regardless of how poor their performance might be.
Generations of children have suffered the terrible consequences of these antiquated anti-educational union practices, because nobody was prepared to stand up to the union/political party establishment that has been calling the shots. If anyone can shake up the system and force the radical changes needed it is the parents. Their motives cannot be questioned by the unions nor can their demands be ignored by the politicians because they represent a lot more voters than the teachers. Votes are the only thing that counts for politicians in the big policy decisions, not what is right and wrong, and this is why unions have been dictating their terms, at the expense of the disorganised majority for decades.
The national confederation of parents associations can change all this as long as its sticks to its guns and keeps the pressure on the politicians. The parents have the numbers to be a positive force and end the total control wielded by the teaching unions. And they have the power to push for more changes. Apart from a system of evaluation of teachers, they should also demand the ministry introduces an evaluation system for each state school with their results published every year. Results in the university entrance exams would be one way of establishing how each school is performing. This would create healthy competition and expose the failing schools, forcing the ministry to take remedial action. It would also make head-teachers push their staff more and deal with inadequate teachers.
Control of education has to be taken away from unions and politicians. Parents are the only group that can do this. They must keep applying pressure.
