SECONDARY school students were sent home early yesterday as their teachers walked out of classrooms for the day’s last period, protesting the austerity measures that impact their sector.
Teachers will be forced to work for an extra period (40 minutes) a week, a move that will likely see 413 contract teachers out of a job, education minister Giorgos Demosthenous said yesterday.
The measures are among those agreed with Cyprus’ international lenders, the troika, or the EU and IMF, as part of the bailout deal.
But the secondary school teachers’ union, OELMEK, accused the government of failing to negotiate correctly the terms of the agreement.
“Bad negotiation will lead our colleagues, some of who have been working for five years even ten, to unemployment,” OELMEK head Demetris Taliadoros said.
OELMEK – which is supported by the primary school teachers’ union POED – has said they were not ruling out stronger measures, but he did not specify what those measures might be.
The top salary for state primary and secondary school teachers comes to just under €65,000 a year, the second highest top salary in the EU. Newcomers earn €30,000 a year, the fifth highest salary for teachers in the EU.
But OELMEK has said that instead of targeting tax evaders and the wealthy, civil servants were being asked to bear the brunt of the austerity measures.
POED said that in addition to driving people to unemployment, increasing teaching time would “negatively impact the way schools are run, burdening even more educators’ daily schedule and teaching itself”.
Demosthenous said yesterday that protesting was in vain.
“We have made it clear and I told this to the teachers, that nothing can change in how the terms have been laid out,” he said.
Demosthenous said they would try to reduce the number of those affected and would support those made jobless, but did not say how, save to offer his assurances that the ministry was mulling over possibilities.
Cyprus continues spending a comparatively large proportion of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education which demonstrates the government’s commitment, ruling AKEL deputy Andros Kafkalias said yesterday during parliament’s discussion of the 2013 budget. Following Denmark, which contributes 8.7 per cent of its GDP to education, Cyprus is the second highest spender with 8.0 per cent, according to eurostat’s latest available data.