In remarks made following the session of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, Education Minister Athina Michaelidou.
Specifically, in response to a question regarding the reactions, the Minister stated that most of the trade unions’ demands have been met. She explained that they are not proceeding solely with those who have passed the exam, as required by current legislation.
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“We have agreed to include in a special registry all those who have worked in the education system in recent years—on permanent contracts, of course, because they are entitled to it, both as contract employees and as substitutes. So, a very large number of people who have indeed helped the system—we have invested in them, they have prior experience—continue to work on an as-needed basis, just as they do today, within the system,” he added.
The organizations’ second request concerned the registry—that it not be discontinued until these individuals are granted permanent status or become indefinite-term employees, he said. “And we have accepted this. There remains only one point for us: it is not legally permissible for them to be entitled to permanent status without passing an exam. As is the case in the broader sector, there is a legal issue here as well; for us, this is the only point of disagreement that does not depend on us but on the law. “Therefore, the dialogue should not be used as a lever—whether, if you will, to exert pressure or to perpetuate the problem,” the Minister added.
Noting that the Ministry is moving forward with the procedures, she stated that “it has been implemented; everyone’s position has been clarified. A deadlock cannot be decided unilaterally either. For us, there is no deadlock. We have given everything we can give.” He went on to say, “The teachers we have in our schools are a matter of educational quality,” and that one of the key global indicators is how quality education is provided.
“So we’re interested in this combination we’re creating—where prior service and experience are part of the system—but also in providing opportunities for other people to pass the exam and enter the system,”he added. “If I were to grant permanent status to approximately 4,000 people—according to our data—automatically without an exam, that would mean I’m blocking everyone else from entering the system, and we don’t want that,” he added.
So, he said, “we’re moving forward with the established procedures: a two-week public consultation, followed by a Cabinet review, and by the end of November—if all goes well—it will be submitted to Parliament, where everyone will have the opportunity to discuss these issues.”
He referred to two issues that are circulating and, as he put it, “misinforming” those affected—those 4,000 people—that we are cutting jobs or eliminating permanent positions. Neither of these is true.”
Today, he said, 40,000 people are waiting in a queue, waiting for their turn—whenever that may come—to be granted permanent status and hired according to needs. “We’re keeping this system. They are hired on a 50-50 basis according to needs, while the rest who passed the exam are granted permanent status much more quickly through the ranking exam we’ve already proposed,” Ms. Michaelidou noted.
In response to another question, she said, among other things, that as early as 2015 it had already been decided to abolish the list of appointees “in order to bring about a real change in the system. ‘It was described as the greatest educational reform.’” She noted that “we want to keep this path to reform open to the public, to our young people, so they can decide to become teachers and ultimately have a future.”
In response to a journalist’s comment regarding an attempt by educational organizations to bypass her—organizations which, as mentioned, are requesting a meeting with the President of the Republic—the Minister noted “We’ve been through this before, and with the evaluation, the tactic is exactly the same: when not all demands are met, they consider it a dead end, while we know very well that it is impossible to meet all the demands of the labor unions, and then we ask for intervention.”
“As a government, we have decided to move toward reforming the education system. If we do not make radical changes, if we do not carry out reforms, we will not achieve the results we want,” he added.
He noted that the Ministry of Education’s budget is the highest of all ministries, except for the Ministry of Finance. “We want to invest in education, but we also want to see the results we need to achieve. And to achieve them—according to international research and the literature—we are investing in teachers: the admissions system, evaluation systems—we have this in place and will work hard to ensure it functions properly—and, of course, detailed curricula: what we teach and how we teach it. These are the three pillars of our action,” he noted.
When asked about a recent report stating that children’s reading comprehension in Cyprus is the lowest in Europe, and given Cyprus’s poor performance in other subjects as well, and what the goal is for addressing these quality issues, the Minister emphasized that, unless fundamental changes are made to the system, “if we don’t change things—and we’re changing them in a targeted way, focusing on our teachers, on their evaluation and professional development, as well as on their access to resources and on what we teach and how we teach it— we cannot expect better results; we’ve said this many, many times.”
This is what the countries that improved their PISA results have done, he noted. “Therefore, we must make radical changes. The plan is certainly in place; that is why, since last year, we have introduced legislation—which was passed, and we thank the Parliament for that—regarding evaluation and professional development. This year we are implementing a targeted appointment system, and we have been working on the detailed programs from the very beginning,” he said.
“So our focus is on this three-pronged approach to achieve better results,” he said, noting that “very soon” another international study on elementary education will be announced “and we expect to see better results because we’ve implemented many targeted programs there; we’ll do the same in secondary education.”
Source: KYPE
