Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Teachers are on strike in all public secondary schools today meaning that exams will not be held, Yeniduzen reports.
On Monday the Cyprus Turkish Secondary Education Teachers’ Union (KTOEÖS) announced its decision to continue the strike Tuesday.
A press release issued by the union said the following: “The Ministry of Education and the UBP-DP-YDP government continue to attack teachers and society by imposition, and they insist on this … .We will fight on. On Tuesday, 23.05.2023, between 08.30-12.30, a strike will be held in all our schools, exams will not be held. ….The Ministry of Education will be responsible for the resulting chaos.
“We call on the Ministry of Education to withdraw the law once again in order to eliminate this chaos and find solutions to real problems in education”.
In October 2022, the union issued the following statement: “While not allocating a single penny for schools, which are our priority and urgent problems in education, crowded classrooms, schools waiting for repairs and renovations, adaptation for foreign students, technological infrastructure deficiencies of schools, art and sports equipment, the Minister of Education continues with the artificial agenda it created”.
Five days ago Kibris Postasi reported that Minister of National Education Nazım Çavuşoğlu criticized the attitude of teachers’ unions that strike because they have made changes in the law to make it compulsory for teachers to fill the working hours determined by the law and to attend in-service training courses.
Çavuşoğlu went on to say that closing the Atatürk Teachers Academy is out of the question and said, “We will change the law of the Academy and modernise it. In addition, we are making a legal amendment that will enable TRNC citizens studying pre-school and classroom teaching in Turkey to become teachers in line with the quota to be determined”.
In a separate article published by Kibris Postasi the education minister said: “We have also abolished the provision that those who have completed 36 months are appointed from temporary teaching positions to staff. [They will be required to take an exam to gain permanent employment] When we consider the need in the country in terms of keeping the rights of temporary teachers intact, this will be disabled as of 2023”.
