The sense of entitlement of today’s teenagers is a rather disturbing phenomenon, although not surprising. It has been cultivated by their parents and follows the bad example set by their heavily unionized teachers, whose sense of entitlement covers low productivity and minimal effort that is rewarded by promotion.

The last time the groups of the entitled were in alliance, backed by the misguided parents’ associations, was when they united in opposition to the twice-yearly exams, which they decided involved too much extra work and had to be abolished. They protested and campaigned for several years and secured the pledge to abolish them from Nicos Christodoulides, who did so, very soon after his election.

This not only boosted the sense of entitlement of kids and teachers, it also showed them that under the Christodoulides government they would always get their way. The next objective was the installation of air conditioning units in the classrooms, and the kids, backed by parents and teachers, demanded AC units in all classrooms immediately. Their sense of entitlement did not permit them to show any understanding for the position of the government which sought time – a few years – to raise the funds and complete the task. No concern about whether money and resources were available – their demand had to be satisfied immediately.

The secondary school students’ union Psem has been applying pressure on the education ministry, criticizing it for the slow pace of work and complaining that teenagers were suffering, sitting in classrooms without functioning ACs. For the schoolkids, the lack of ACs only became a problem in recent years. Ten years ago none of the youths and their parents were complaining about the non-existence of ACs in classrooms.

It was the teaching unions that elevated the school ACs to an issue of paramount educational importance, because they consistently used it as a diversionary tactic. For years they would bring up the urgency of the installation of ACs to avoid discussion of the new evaluation system of teachers the education ministry wanted to introduce. Teaching unions argued that there could be no new evaluation system without their AC demands being fully satisfied first, knowing that this could not be done overnight.

Last Monday Psem, advertised its members disgraceful sense of entitlement, by staging a boycott of two class periods in protest against lack of AC units, slamming the pace of the installations and claiming that teenagers were ‘suffering’ – some had fainted we were told. Nobody dared to tell these spoiled entitled teenagers that they should be ashamed to protest about ACs, especially as the government was working on gradually installing them in all classrooms.

Nobody dared to put these ungrateful kids in their place and to remind them how many generations of children before them went through school without ever having an AC in the classroom and never complaining about it. The sense of entitlement which today’s schoolchildren display is distasteful, offering approval to the culture of selfishness, a lesson that public school teachers have been zealously delivering to impressionable children.