President Nikos Christodoulides avoided any involvement in the ongoing dispute between his government and teaching unions, leaving Education Minister Athena Michaelidou to take the heat, but on Monday, with unions announcing work stoppages, he took a stand. Educational reform and in particular the introduction of the new evaluation system for public school teachers must go ahead, he said, reminding that its approval would release €60 million from the Recovery and Resilience Fund.

The new evaluation system is a milestone set by the EU for the release of the funds and the president said, “we will not allow the loss of even a euro for our country and Cypriot citizens.” He also pointed out the obvious that “we cannot have in the year 2025 anyone refusing to be evaluated (for the work), as we are all evaluated daily, either institutionally or through society.” Looking ahead to the vote by the primary teachers union Poed, later on Monday (it voted for a 90-minute work stoppage on November 26), the president said, “I do not consider there is any justification, bearing in mind the consultations that lasted so long, for there to be any delay in the voting of this reform by the legislature.”

He was absolutely right to put the matter in its true context – that the teaching unions do not want their members’ job performance to be evaluated and have been employing delaying tactics from day one. The unions, showing their true intentions, do not want the evaluation of teachers to be carried out by the school’s head teacher and have rejected a compromise proposal from the education ministry for a five-year transitional period, before this arrangement is finalized. But if the CEO (head teacher) of the company (school) cannot evaluate the job performance of each employee (teachers), who should be given this responsibility? The schoolkids, the parents or the union representative? The unions want the teachers to evaluate teachers, which essentially means nobody really being evaluated.

With the discussion of the bill on educational reform set to start at the House education committee on Wednesday the secondary teachers’ union, Oelmek, has called a three-and-a-hour work stoppage on Wednesday so teachers can stage demonstration outside the House. School will open at 11am causing maximum inconvenience to parents, who will have to change the day’s programme. At least this has turned the parents’ associations, which had been invariably siding with the teaching unions, for the last few years, against them. The unions’ self-serving arrogance has isolated the teachers, even though some deputies are backing their unreasonableness.

We hope that everyone will side with rationality. The only risk now is that some parties or individual deputies would change the government bill on the evaluation of the teachers in a way that would satisfy teaching unions. This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances.