A total of 1,950 teachers across Cyprus objected to their placements or transfers for the academic year which has just become, education service committee chairman Panayiotis Antoniou said on Thursday.

Speaking to Philenews, he said that figure constitutes the most objections ever filed by teachers before the start of an academic year – a fact he said made school staffing procedures “difficult”, and eventually delayed them by two weeks.

With this in mind, he said his committee “worked non-stop and efforts were made to staff schools in time”, while he added that it is now necessary to find a new way to deal with the issue of teacher placements and transfers.

One step he said he intends to take is to announce all the positions required in advance, though he said that would require “timely information” being given by the education ministry.

However, he said, should the plans come to fruition, teachers will be able to express interest in certain positions should they wish to work in a certain part of the country, thus removing the process of offering placements, and teachers rejecting or objecting to them.

To this end, he said some teachers had complained about being placed in schools far away from their place of residence, and that for this reason, the regulations regarding placements should be modernised.

In terms of sheer numbers, he said 305 teachers joined their respective schools’ permanent staff, while 1,154 permanent appointments were made, and 2,923 contracts were signed.

The rejections of placements come after this year’s examinations for would-be teachers recorded high failure rates.

Just seven per cent of would-be Greek teachers and would-be mathematics teachers passed the entrance examinations, while 11 per cent of would-be primary school teachers passed.

Primary school teachers’ union Poed chairwoman Myria Vassiliou said a dialogue is needed about inconsistencies in testing and asked for the education ministry to review the matter.

Education ministry representative Demetris Chandriotis pointed out on the other hand that these pass rates were not wildly different to previous years, but said discussions would be held on the matter.

“The ministry believes improvements can be made. Targeted interventions can take place, and legal regulation may be required,” he said.

He added, “it is true that in the three categories of Greek, Maths and primary school teachers, there is a problem in knowledge base.”