Our View: Education ministry must end knee-jerk reactions prompted by others  

DECISIONS being taken by the education ministry for public schools are increasingly the product of knee-jerk reactions rather than studies and research. This is partly because too big a say in decisions is being given to parents’ associations and students groups. Once the ministry had given teaching unions such a big say in how state education is run, it had to do the same for other organised groups such as parents and teenage kids. Now, whenever any decision has to be taken, representatives of the so-called stakeholders have to be invited to the ministry to air their views.

These views, as we said are the product of knee-jerk reactions. After last year’s tragedy of the 10-year-old boy who fell over in the playground and died, the stakeholders immediately stepped in with their suggestions. All school playgrounds should be covered with rubber tiles so that similar tragedies were avoided. Did a single, freak accident in the last 40 years justify resurfacing all public school playgrounds? In addition to this, the confederation of parents’ associations together with teaching unions demanded that every school employed a qualified nurse full-time.

Once the incident was forgotten so was the need for the full-time nurse and for the resurfacing of playgrounds. When the odd incident of anti-social behaviour is reported at a school, we have calls for the posting of a psychologist at every school while the latest demand, by the students’ association, is for social workers at schools, to deal with delinquency and the inequalities evident in society.

It gets worse. On Monday all the stakeholders met with education minister Costas Hambiaouris to discuss how to make schools ‘safer’. This in itself is a bit of a joke because public schools are pretty safe establishments. Occasionally there may be some trouble but it is neither widespread nor frequent. There were some isolated incidents after which it was demanded that all schools should be fenced and cameras and intercoms installed to monitor who was entering. As if this were not bad enough, Hambiaouris announced on Monday that 56 security guards will be stationed at secondary and technical schools from September. It was another knee-jerk reaction to a couple of teachers being hurt while trying to stop a fight between two students.

Public schools would become more like prisons when all these measures are implemented which could hardly be described as the ideal educational setting. These measures are not only repressive but also alienating and would never have been taken if the ministry was capable of basing its decisions on research and educational values instead of responding to the knee-jerk reactions of stakeholders.