A MUNDANE dispute over a staff promotion at the English School has had the unforeseen consequence of turning the institution’s legal status on its head.
The school was founded in 1900 by Canon Frank Darvall Newham as a privately owned entity. But in 1930 Newham concluded an arrangement whereby control of the school was transferred to the British governor of Cyprus. After independence in 1959, jurisdiction passed over to the fledgling Cypriot state, and specifically the Cabinet.
Ever since, the school’s situation has been a peculiar one; on the one hand, it was considered a public organisation, yet on the other it retained a great deal of autonomy.
The school’s property (the premises and the land on which it lies) is owned by the state, but the board has considerable leeway in running day-to-day affairs. For example, the board decides on matter such as recruiting, sacking and promotions.
In short, the school is something of a hybrid: part public, part private.
That, is until about a month ago, when a Supreme Court ruling changed all that.
The issue surfaced when a staff member took to the courts to challenge a decision by the board promoting another member to the post of deputy headmaster.
The court of first instance upheld the motion. The board then tried to reverse the ruling by appealing to the Supreme Court.
In hearing the appeal, the bench of judges at the Supreme Court on its own initiative opted to examine the legal status of the school.
Working with documents supplied by lawyers, the top court in the land reasoned that, since at least one member of the school’s board was not a government appointee, the school could not be considered a public organisation.
Under the current regime, nine of the 10 board members are appointed by the Cabinet. By tradition, three of these are school graduates, three parents of students attending the school at the given time, and three directly appointed by the Cabinet. The tenth member is the director of the British Council.
Since the panel of judges deemed the school was not public, this meant that challenges to promotions could not be filed with the courts in the first place. The immediate result was to reinstate the board’s initial decision to appoint a new deputy headmaster.
But it has also had a far-reaching side effect: if the English School is now private, it is not entitled to the annual state grant.
Moreover, staff complain that they risk losing the right to challenge board decisions on hiring and promotions.
But Andreas Panayiotou, the school’s board chairman, told the Mail he was not unduly worried.
“We shall continue operating as before… little, if anything, will change,” he said.
According to Panayiotou, it was now up to the government to amend the law governing the management and control of the school so that it could revert to its prior status as a public organisation.
But even if that were not to happen, he added, he could not see any sweeping changes to the running of the school.
The English School has a budget of £3.5 million, so that losing the annual £200,000 grant would not be a devastating blow.
So what are the obligations of the school to the state? For one thing, if the school wants to hire someone, the applicant must pass a standard examination. By contrast, a private school can simply place an ad about an opening, interview applicants and then hire without the need for an examination.
What’s more, assuming the school wants to build a new wing, it has to invite tenders and then adhere to all the relevant regulations that public organisations have to follow, such as selecting the lowest bid.
Since its inception, the English School has offered a British-style secondary level education to children from all the communities of Cyprus. Originally it only accepted the children of the British rulers of the island, and was located in old Nicosia. It moved to its current premises in 1939.
From September 2003 onwards, the school returned to its bi-communal status by enrolling Turkish Cypriots.
