STATE TEACHERS are allegedly not only illegally tutoring students but doing a bad job at school to force them to take yet more lessons, the head of the Association for Private Tutors, Adonis Mylonas charged yesterday.
“It’s completely unacceptable to be manipulating parents and students,” said Mylonas, who referred to the situation as a ‘black market’. “Think that this is the case in such bad economic times: the tax evasion, the burden on households,” he added.
The issue of illegal private lessons by state teachers has been an ongoing for the last few years as civil servants are not permitted to have a second job. It is in fact a criminal offence for teachers as they should not take money in the afternoon from the same students they teach in the morning to cover parts of the syllabus that they have failed to do so during school hours.
“You can’t put 10 to 12 students in a kitchen to have a lesson, it’s a matter of safety, literally,” said Mylonas adding that the complaints were unheard of, such as students being charged €50 an hour with 10 students in the class.
The Association is calling for a registration committee to be formed, that will provide a position for an inspector, who will be involved with issues of educational systems and illegal tutoring.
Mylonas explained that they had received many complaints and as a result want to “officially invite OELMEK (Secondary School Teachers’ Association) to a meeting” to hand over all of the evidence concerning the complaints.
“We have never supported colleagues that give illegal lessons in the afternoon,” said head of OELMEK Eleni Semelidou, condemning the issue if in fact there were state teachers “who are blackmailing students using their grades.”
“I must say clearly that we’re not the Ministry of Education, we’re not the police, we’re not the courts and whatever evidence there may be it is not OELMEK’s job to file it,” said Semelidou. She also clarified the association’s position asserting that state schools need to be upgraded and supported so that “our children do not need to attend a second school after they get out of school.”
