The current crisis in education is the culmination of the government’s barren and dead-end policy it has been imposing on education as well

Statement by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A.Kyprianou

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 30 August 2018, Nicosia

AKEL expresses its deep concern at the protracted stalemate in Education and the possibility of serious problems being provoked to the beginning of the new school year.

For someone to take a position objectively on the policy needed to overcome the crisis and the dangers to public education, it should first be clear who had provoked it. The crisis was provoked by the unilateral decisions taken by the Anastasiades-DISY government and its stubborn refusal to withdraw them. The government, violating established procedures that have been applied for decades, forced educational organizations to react. The Government has every right to pursue its policies and to want these policies to be discussed. Educational organizations of course have the same right too. Precisely to avoid crises such as the current one, procedures founded on structured dialogue were established for decades, that is to say the Education Service’s Joint Personnel Committee (MEPEY) on labour issues and Education Councils for education issues.

This procedure which was being pursued by everyone was violated by the Anastasiades – DISY government. Indeed it insists on violating it, acting with unprecedented arrogance and authoritarianism. It was logical and to be expected that such a handling of issues on its part would provoke teachers to react. In its insistence on defending its positions, the Government took an additional negative step. It attempted to denigrate and defame teachers and their trade union leaders in particular without regard to the consequences. In doing so, it damaged teacher’s relationships with parents and school pupils. It is undermining the mutual respect that is essential for the smooth functioning and discipline at school.

The Anastasiades – Alarm Government that has provoked the crisis is the only one that can take steps to defuse it. This we believe will be achieved by adopting the proposal tabled by all political parties besides the ruling DISY party and which is supported by many organizations and bodies.

This proposal provides for the suspension of the implementation of the Council of Minister’s decision, the suspension of any strike or other measures decided by the educational organizations, the smooth beginning of the school year and the preparation of a complete and detailed list of all the issues that need to be discussed. It also provides for the immediate start of a dialogue to resolve issues with priority and the implementation of a complete and comprehensive framework from the 2019-2020 school year. This, in our view, is the only way to project a way out of this crisis that is tormenting the educational community, parents and society as a whole.

The Government must realize that it cannot tackle such key issues that affect the present and the future of the country in such a way. All the developments we have been observing over the past few days are not an unfortunate moment in some supposed successful course of the Anastasiades-DISY government. The current crisis in education is the culmination of the barren and dead-end policy which has been imposed by the Government also on issues relating to public education.

Since 2014, as AKEL, we had been warning about the anti-social policies that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank wanted to impose on public education. The then Minister of Education argued that what the IMF and the World Bank were proposing were not binding. However, developments has revealed that the government was planning their implementation covertly. At the same time, the government stopped the carrying out of the educational reform that by the two previous governments were implementing. Instead it has yet again imposed arbitrary authoritarian measures moving in the direction of reversing the educational reform such as promoting exams every four months.

We totally agree that all the important issues affecting public education need to be raised and discussed within the framework of a structured dialogue with the participation of all involved parties. To do this, however, it is necessary first to overcome the crisis.

Although the government and ruling forces know very well what happened and why the teachers are reacting, they accuse AKEL of supposedly instigating the crisis in education. This can only be said as a joke, which is why I will comment on this assertion as a joke. If AKEL has managed to mobilize thousands of teachers and others in a mass protest in the middle of August, then we have done a great job. It isn’t AKEL who organized the teachers to take to the streets in the biggest protest held in recent years. The unity shown by the educational organizations and the mass character of their mobilizations are proof of this fact. It is the policies, the authoritarianism and arrogance demonstrated by the Anastasiades-DISY government, which damage public education that have led teachers to take to the streets. Instead of understanding this and acting constructively to overcome the crisis, the government and ruling forces choose to aggravate the situation by demeaning and denigrating teachers as working people, something they have also done previously with other working people in their confrontation with nurses, bus drivers and shop assistants.

Worst of all is that the crisis and the danger of schools not opening is being provoked on the argument that 5 million euros will be saved. This is being said at the same time as the Anastasiades-DISY Government has burdened the people with 8 billion euros of losses from the sale of the Cyprus Cooperative Bank; at the same time as the government is talking with Noble Energy Company discussing its demand to grant the company 2 billion euros from the state revenues.

AKEL, concerned about the foreseen developments, sent a letter to Mr. Anastasiades from mid-July calling on him to intervene for the crisis in education to be avoided. Unfortunately, the President of the Republic didn’t manage to do so because he remains dogmatically tied to his obsessions. We again address an appeal to Mr. Anastasiades and the Government to overcome their obsessions, arrogance and authoritarianism; to talk in a constructive manner with the educational organizations to defuse the crisis. They should even at this late hour be useful and beneficial to society, as the President constantly proclaims.

Lastly, we want to make a reference to the educational organizations and teachers. We want to congratulate them for the responsibility, seriousness, ethos, dignity and determination with which they have handled the issues. The issues concern them directly. The decisions on all of these will be taken by the teachers themselves.