Well into the new school year, the education ministry is still nowhere near to introducing the new evaluation system for teachers. The relevant bill had been submitted to the legislature several weeks ago, but the House education committee seems unwilling to touch it because the powerful teaching unions oppose it. It looks like teachers will escape evaluation this school year as well, as the political parties are unlikely to push through the bill and alienate teaching unions a few months before parliamentary elections.

In fact, it was the House education committee president, Pavlos Mylonas, who decided that the bill should not be discussed at the committee when it was submitted with a view to being approved by the time of the start of the school year. He told the education minister and the unions to enter talks so that the legislature could approve a bill that was consensual. It was a bad move by Mylonas as this implied that union bosses had as much of a say in the evaluation system that would be introduced as the education ministry.

This should never have been the case, and the deputy was openly pandering to the unions with his allegedly impartial stance. Does Mylonas actually believe that in any organisation, public or private, the employer should not have the right to evaluate workers’ performance in the way he or she decides? Must employees decide how their work is evaluated and by whom, as the clueless, teaching union bosses have been contending, with the audacity to claim they are taking a reasonable stance?

Only in the Cyprus public sector would objecting to being evaluated by your supervisor be considered reasonable. In the private sector, it would be regarded insane. The main objection of the unions to the bill is the provision by which the head teacher would grade performances. In short, the union bosses do not want the ‘CEO’ of the school, the person ultimately responsible for the welfare of students, to evaluate the ‘workers’.

Education minister Athena Michaelidou quite rightly pointed out, at a conference about the matter, earlier in the week that “we do not evaluate in order to punish teachers, we evaluate in order to support and strengthen.” She also underlined that “we want head teachers that are leaders, not decorative elements.” Who could disagree with the minister who is the only person talking sense in this dispute?

If Mylonas was a more responsible president of the House education committee, he would not have urged the two sides to engage in dialogue, but have come out openly on the side of the minister, who wants to improve teaching standards by introducing a reliable evaluation system. Teaching union bosses are not interested in improving standards at schools, which is a compelling reason for ignoring their objections.