We will all be reminded, once again today, that public schools exist to serve the teachers and that teaching unions would not have it any other way. Thanks to weak governments and politicians that are subservient to unions, public schools are controlled by the two militant teaching unions, Poed and Oelmek, which have always put the interests and well-being of their members high above those of the children.

These unions have ensured that these teachers work the fewest hours in the EU, that their teaching periods are reduced with years of service, that they receive pay increases every year regardless of their performance, and that they receive a big pension at the end of their untaxing working life. The pay rises and continually improving work conditions keep coming regardless of the fact that public education standards are on a downward spiral and our students are near the bottom when they sit international tests to establish standards in different countries.

And the saddest thing of all is that the teachers, suffering from an acute sense of entitlement, do not care. Their only commitment is to their personal interest. This was why their unions doggedly defended the criminal, waiting-list appointment system that labelled the most unsuitable graduates ‘teachers’ and placed them in the classroom where their unsuitability was evident but nothing was done about it. Oelmek is the union that fought against the twice-yearly exam system introduced by the education ministry, in order to help students, because it demanded a little more work by the teachers. It was scrapped by the Christodoulides government.

On Thursday, these self-serving teachers have decided to stage a work stoppage, that will affect some 300,000 students and parents, to protest against the evaluation system that is scheduled to be approved by the legislature before the end of the year. Unions do not want accurate evaluation of each teacher’s performance and have been coming up with excuses to oppose the system prepared by the education ministry. In the beginning, Oelmek publicly abused the education minister, then it pressured deputies of the House education committee to block the evaluation bill, before staging strikes. Thursday’s is the second in four weeks at secondary schools and the first at primary schools.

The only positive point about this disgracefully irresponsible behaviour is that the parents’ associations that always sided with the teaching unions in the past, have turned against them. It was about time parents realised that teaching unions only care about their members’ well-being. If they cared about the children’s best interests, they would not be fighting tooth and nail to prevent the introduction of an evaluation system that might force teachers to do a better job and eventually raise public education standards. This is why the teaching union must not be allowed to get their way.