‘Spend, spend’ appeal as pupils go back to school
THE Cyprus Turkish Teachers’ Union have urged an increase in education spending, on the first day back for thousands of state and private schoolchildren. National Education and Culture Minister Cemal Özyigit rang the school bell at Lefkoşa’s Atatürk Primary School, where he served as a teacher and head teacher for many years, to symbolically start the new academic year. In a brief statement, he said: “As we did before, we will continue to do our utmost towards our sole and ultimate goal of preparing children better for the future.” Acknowledging problems in the education sector, he said he would not “hide behind any excuses” but would work to solve the difficulties with good will and collaboration. However the occasion was overshadowed by a demonstration in front of the ministry, at which Cyprus Turkish Teachers’ Union (Ktös) education secretary Burak Maviş urged the officials to increase education spending because it was “unacceptable that, for political reasons, schools started the new term without notebooks, text books, chairs, teachers and head teachers”.
“We have warned officials many times about those problems but no-one has taken any notice . . . Unless they are resolved very soon we will take more action,” said Mr Maviş, adding: “The minister and ministry officials have changed and we thought this would be a positive development, and that the new term would start without problems. But that hasn’t proved the case; the mentality hasn’t changed.”
Mr Maviş claimed problems included a 25 per cent teacher shortage in primary schools due to limits agreed with Turkey, and a lack of textbooks because there had been no bidders in a tender to print them.
Meanwhile, he alleged, classes were overcrowded because incoming workers had swelled pupil numbers by “some 3040 per cent” — and there was “no possibility of planning education without knowing the population”.
Ktös head Emel Tel added that while teacher numbers had been cut by a quarter the rise in pupil numbers across the country meant some classes had nearly 40 students and even lacked chairs, while there were vacancies for 84 teachers and seven heads.