Education Minister Costas Kadis on Thursday denied claims by teachers’ unions that the new academic year would begin with understaffing problems.
On Wednesday Kadis had met with representatives of the unions of primary education teachers (POED) and of secondary education teachers (OELMEK) to discuss all issues before the beginning of the new school year in September.
Both unions expressed disappointment at the meeting. POED said that schools would be understaffed and threatened to strike, while OELMEK was not satisfied with the ministry’s proposal to transfer the courses for children with learning disabilities in Greek and mathematics to the afternoon.
POED chief Fylios Fylaktou told state broadcaster CyBC on Thursday that the union was not satisfied by the meeting as the proposals the ministry proposed were “vague”.
He added that according to their estimations, they will need 150 more teachers to be able to cover needs in primary schools and that even though the ministry did not question this, there is no way for them to be appointed unless it is approved by the parliament.
The union will wait to see for the solutions the ministry will propose, as well as how many teachers will be appointed.
“We will wait, we hope not to find ourselves in the difficult position of being in a dead end a few days before the beginning of the new school year,” Fylaktou said. Unless the ministry satisfies these needs, Fylaktou said they will have no other option than to keep the schools closed.
Kadis said that it was POED that was being vague.
“Yesterday reassurances were given that each district and each school have been checked, and that we are ready to begin (the new school year) smoothly,” Kadis said.
In fact, he said, in some schools there was a surplus which would be utilised to satisfy the demands of POED, to relieve head teachers from a few teaching hours, so that they can do more administrative work.
“POED’s stance is provocative,” Kadis said.
He added that his ministry planned on asking the parliament to approve an additional budget to meet the needs that arose as regards staffing. Schools, he said, will be fully staffed, and the new academic year will begin smoothly.
The head of OELMEK Demetris Taliadoros said the ministry’s decision to transfer the special classes for children with learning disabilities in Greek and mathematics to afternoon hours would effectively cancel the programme as no child would be interested in attending after school hours. The programme concerns 1,500 high school students, he said.
Kadis denied the claims saying that the current programme, which costs €2.5m per year had proven ineffective.
“This programme has been implemented for 27 years and it was evaluated only in 2009 and in 2011, and the results are minimum,” Kadis said.
He added that so far no one did anything to change this.
The education ministry, Kadis said, following best practices of other European countries decided to transfer these classes in the afternoon, outside school hours.
“Even if we attract half of the students but we have good results, it will be a success as now nobody benefits from this,” Kadis said.
