Pupils take protest against exams to presidential palace (video)

Hundreds of high school pupils took to the streets on Tuesday calling for the exemption of final year students from the twice-yearly exams citing heavy workload, while teachers threatened with measures for the same reason.

The pupils marched to the presidential palace in the morning with banners calling for the postponement of the exams, and with numbers showing how many exams and tests they take within their three-year lyceum studies.

The protest was organised by student body Psem that said it was requested by schools in all districts.

Head of Psem, Gregoris Gregoriou, said they have also received hundreds of messages from students, parents and teachers, “who are by our side and share the same vision with us, for a comprehensive education and development of critical thinking” away from examination centres.

“We are not alone in the fight to suspend the four-monthly exams. Our teachers also demanded it, but our parents also agree that the exams for the third grade of lyceum should not take place,” he added. Psem, he said, wants “a truly democratic dialogue, where everyone’s views will be heard on how we will proceed to the next school year.”

He said that pupils want an all-round education and not a school that operates as an examination centre.

Pupils, he said, have on several occasions expressed their concerns and disagreement about these exams, but were not heard.

“We continue until they understand that pupils can no longer cope with the stressful programme and that we require comprehensive education,” Gregoriou said. He called for a pupil-centred and not an exam-centred school.

In the meantime, secondary education teachers’ union, Oelmek said they would take measures if the education ministry does not resolve the problems observed with the timelines for the school leaving exams, which is the second four-monthly exam of the school year. They also cite efforts to change the teachers’ working conditions.

The union said that their proposal last June for the postponement for another year of the twice-yearly exams for final year pupils was not heeded, but that developments since the beginning of the school year justify their request.

According to the union, the increased extracurricular tasks of teachers to check students “complicate the smooth conduct of the educational process and led to the loss of valuable teaching time, while the increase in cases recorded recently with new variants of Covid-19 is expected to cause major difficulties in conducting the exams.”

It is also pointed out that the curriculum was not properly adapted to the teaching time, a fact that caused “unbearable pressure” on teachers and pupils.

Education Minister Prodromos Prodromou said on Monday that the pupils’ protest would be “a waste of time” arguing that as long as there are schools, there will also be evaluations.

Main opposition Akel accused the government of giving “a recital in authoritarianism” whereas Prodromou’s stubbornness on this matter was “a pedagogical crime.”