AKEL: The Education Minister must give an answer – Do school students have a right to express their opinion?
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 13th February 2020, Nicosia
Following the clear position expressed by the Commissioner for the Protection of Children’s Rights, AKEL expects the Minister of Education to reply if he insists on the views he expressed in the Parliamentary Education Committee yesterday on the right of school students to voice their opinion. The Minister of Education chose to defend the Headmasters of the two schools who banned school students from participating in the referendum organized by the organized school student’s movement (PSEM). The Minister received a reply from the Commissioner, of course, that children have every right to voice their opinion at school too, something guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Education Minister Mr. Prodromou has again been exposed.
We ask the government:
- Is it aware – if it is aware – of the content of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees the right to free expression?
- Does it accept that the organized school student’s movement, PESM, is the recognized trade union organization of pupils who are entitled and obliged to express their views and that the State needs to engage in talks with it?
- Does the Minister of Education realize that no one has the right to ban school students’ freedom of expression – let alone through a referendum with the participation of the entire school student world – just because they didn’t like the result of the referendum (Note: on the government’s insistence on introducing four-monthly exams) ?
- How long will the Minister provide cover to Headmasters who impose authoritarian perceptions reminiscent of another era in schools?
The MP’s of governing DISY, Democratic Party DIKO and ‘Solidarity’, who prevented the subject “The decision of two Headmasters to ban school students from participating in the referendum organized by the Pancyprian Coordinating Committee of School Students PSEM” from being tabled for discussion, which AKEL had proposed, have also been exposed.
