No smoking room for teachers

SECONDARY School teachers who smoke will not be given a special room in which to do so, the Education Minister has said.

Andreas Demetriou said under no circumstances would teachers be exempt from the law and allowed to set up special smoking rooms in schools.

“I understand the psychological dimensions of smoke addiction. However your request for special smoking areas of one form or other in schools goes against the spirit and the letter of the law,” the minister told teachers’ union OELMEK in writing.

Union president Eleni Semelidou said the teachers had wanted to sit down to discuss the issue with the minister but that he had refused.

“There is a particularity about this issue that needs to be addressed. On the one hand the minister said it isn’t a good idea for teachers to smoke in front of students and on the other its teachers’ legal entitlement to smoke in the school yard at the front entrance outside. These questions need to be addressed,” she said.

Semelidou said teachers were not in favour of smoking but telling teachers who were already addicted to the habit to quit was an unsophisticated response to the problem.

“Also what happens during free periods when we want teachers in the school but they’ve left to go and have a smoke?” she asked.

In light of the minister’s refusal to accept their proposal to set up special smoking rooms for teachers who smoked, which was away from pupils’ eyes, the OELMEK president said she didn’t know what teachers would do.

“I don’t know what will happen. We want him [the minister] to understand the problem but it seems he doesn’t understand… Is it better for students to see their teachers smoking,” she said.