Teachers’ trade unions are to study the government’s proposal for a new system of evaluating teachers, they said on Saturday.

Education Minister Athena Michaelidou had unveiled the proposal on Friday, with primary schoolteachers’ union Poed chairwoman Myria Vasiliou saying the matter will be “the subject of study and discussion”.

“The study will be carried out with full seriousness and responsibility because we understand the burden of responsibility, since a new evaluation plan will accompany the next generations of teachers,” she said.

Technical schoolteachers’ union Oltek chairman Panayiotis Lysandrou, however, was less satisfied with Friday’s presentation, describing it as “too general”.

“The presentation was too general to draw any conclusions. We will first conduct a study at an individual level and then follow it up as a collective,” he said.

He added that thus far, it appears that most of his union’s suggestions have been adopted as part of Michaelidou’s proposal, but that “we will have to see in detail how they are in the final text”.

“At first glance, it satisfied us, but we will have to see it in detail to be able to have safer conclusions,” he said.

Asked if a timetable was set for unions to respond to the proposal and give their own opinions on it, he said they were not given a deadline, but that Michaelidou wants the matter to proceed “as soon as possible”.

“She did give us a timetable for how the ministry sees it progressing and being completed. The goal is for it to be submitted to parliament in June. After the vote, the implementation will be gradual, and it will take a few years. She was talking about five years for it to be completed and fully implemented,” he said.

He added that he is in favour of a gradual implementation of the new system, saying it is “absolutely necessary” to ensure that there are no “distortions and injustices” during the switchover from the old system to the new.

Secondary schoolteachers’ union Oelmek chairman Demetris Taliadoros also stressed that the plan is currently in its infancy, saying there is “a long way to go before a comprehensive proposal can be prepared”.

“There are many things that need to be regulated, recorded, service plans for the various positions, and other things. There is a long way to go,” he added.

Michaelidou had submitted her proposal to the unions on Friday, saying the evaluation of teachers is “a key factor in the quality of the education system”, while also speaking of problems related to validity and reliability in the current system, as well as a “lack of clear criteria to fully cover the multidimensional work teachers do”.

She said the new system will include “multiple and modern evaluation sources”, including multi-person evaluation and “interconnection with educational work”, transparent procedures, and the “strengthening of meritocracy”.

Additionally, she said, there will be “clear and measurable evaluation criteria” and the adoption of the principle that “whoever evaluates will be themselves evaluated”.