16.9 C
Nicosia
Friday, March 29, 2024

In the Legal Service the bills for evaluation of teachers-Sponsorship of tablets to students

Must read

Στη Νομικor Υπ ηρεσΙα τα νομοσχΕδια για αξιολό&gamma ησ&eta? ;ετ σε μαθητeς

The Minister of Education, Sports and Youth Prodromos Prodromou announced the dispatch to the Legal Service for legal technical review of two bills for the evaluation of educational work and teachers in Primary and Secondary Education, stressing that “it is time to have a more modern and more reliable system evaluation”.  

At the same time, the Minister of Education announced the granting of sponsorship to all children in the 3rd grade for the acquisition of a tablet device and to all the children in the 2nd high school for the acquisition of a personal laptop computer, as well as sponsorship to children who belong to economically vulnerable groups which will amount to 100% of the cost of a device.

Furthermore, the Minister of Education announced the grant of 12.2 million euros that the Recovery and Resilience Plan gives to families so that children can benefit in the coming years from the free pre-primary education from the age of 4, but also the 1,500 – 2,000 children who currently attend public kindergartens, under the age of 4 years and 8 months, and pay tuition.

He also announced the conversion of community kindergartens (parents' links) into public kindergartens and the planning by the Ministry's technical services to increase the capacity of public kindergartens to accommodate more children.

Specifically, in statements in the context of a press conference, at the Ministry of Education, Mr. Prodromou said that after decades and almost 3 years of processes and consultations with the stakeholders and “after we have received opinions and suggestions from the educational organizations, some of which have been incorporated into our proposals, we have reached and are being sent to the Legal Service for legal processing two bills on the evaluation of educational work and teachers in Primary and Secondary Education”.

“It is time to have a more modern and more reliable evaluation system”, he emphasized and added that “the desire is to modernize and upgrade it”.

The Minister of Education said that the proposals foresee “a transitional period which is necessary for the adjustment mainly in terms of the next promotion procedures in order to take into account the new assessment from the moment all candidates will have at least one assessment”.

Referring to the goals set for this upgrade, Mr. Prodromou said that “there should be a structured and systematic planning of the Ministry for the formative assessment and training of teachers where necessary” and “secondly there should be a greater emphasis on the collective evaluation, i.e. in addition to the evaluation of each of the teachers, in the evaluation of the educational work of the school”.

As a third objective, he continued, “is to have a system that effectively and not only formally promotes meritocracy “, explaining that “teachers' judgments and careers also depend on the value and effort they put in (performance within schools)”.

He stated that one of the weaknesses of the existing evaluation system is that it “did not always allow discrimination and meritocracy to the end” and added that “the new system, which will be more meritocratic, will allow us to address these weaknesses and end a situation in which the career depends to a very large extent on the seniority, sometimes leveling the efforts of the teachers, but also the incentives that must be given”.

He also said that the fourth goal is “to have continuous feedback between the Ministry and the schools in relation to what is happening in the schools, the curricula, the methodology used in the schools and to determine in a valid way the needs for adjustments”.< /p>

He noted that in the preparation of the bills “we have also benefited from the previous plan made before 2019, by a special committee chaired by Professor Kostas Christos, but also from earlier evaluation plans”, which were made during the Ministry of the late Ministers Pefkiou Georgiadis, Akis Cleanthos and Ouraniou Ioannidis.

Referring briefly to the innovations present in these proposals, the Minister of Education said that they are that “the evaluation is based on specific criteria (fields) visible which ensure greater transparency”, while “the participation of the Directorate of schools is foreseen for the first time because they are the immediate superiors of the teachers at the school, but above all because we have constant daily contact and knowledge of the activities and what is happening at the school”.  

Mr. Prodromou explained that “an evaluation and rating by the inspectors and managers will be done at the same time and an average will be weighted”, and “initially it is planned that the weight of the evaluation will be 2/3 from the inspection and by 1/3 from the management”.

In relation to the third innovation, Mr. Prodromou said that the evaluation scale is being upgraded to 100 points and “so there will be greater accuracy and the ability of evaluators to make the necessary distinction”, while the fourth innovation, according to the Minister, “is that the secondary evaluation process, with examination of any objections that may exist, will be carried out by different bodies from the initial evaluation for greater impartiality”.

He also mentioned that the fifth innovation is that “there will be a permanent, permanent connection of the evaluation process with educational actions that will be organized in the pedagogical institute”, which foresees a series of, as he said, “educational seminars that will be addressed to large groups of teachers according to the needs that will be connected to the evaluation”.

He noted that “the same will happen collectively for the evaluation of the educational work”.

Sponsorship for 3rd grade children and 2nd High School

Besides, the Minister of Education said that within the framework of the Government's and the country's strategy for digital transformation in education, we have the e-governance plan for schools, which is being implemented, as well as the plan to convert all classrooms into digital classrooms, which is progressing and will be finalized soon with the aim of converting 6,600 classrooms to digital ones.

He also said that the third strand is the enrichment and adaptation of school curricula provided for in the Recovery and Resilience Plan and added that this planning aims to “adapt curricula and more systematically integrate digital skills into education.”

At the same time, he said that the plan “Cyprus – Tomorrow” includes provision that will start to be implemented these days for all students individually and is about “having all our children now in education a personal electronic device”.

The Minister of Education announced that it is in the implementation stage for this year to grant sponsorship to the children of the 3rd grade of the Primary School for the acquisition of a tablet device, and at the same time, all the children of the 2nd High School will be given a sponsorship for the acquisition of a personal laptop computer.

“This plan concerns about 7,500 children in primary education and 7,500 children in Secondary Education”, he said and added that the provision is from the age of 7-8 to have a tablet in their hands which they can use until A ΄ High School and then at the age of 13, in 2nd High School, children should have a laptop computer.    

Stating that up to now the granting of sponsorship to children belonging to economically vulnerable groups was valid, Mr. Prodromou said that the experience is that some children from economically vulnerable groups “cannot take advantage of the sponsorship because they have to use family money” and “for that under the plan we will implement now, the sponsorship for children belonging to economically vulnerable groups  will be increased to reach 100% of the cost of a device (a tablet for primary school children and a computer for high school children) “.

“The details will be announced in the next period in the schools”, he noted.

Free education from the age of 4

< p>Mr. Prodromou said that since the previous year, the Ministry of Education has planned for the inclusion in public kindergartens of children aged 4 years and 6 months to 4 years and 8 months in the next school year who will benefit from the “Cyprus” Project – Tomorrow” and added that “in 2023/24 we have ensured that these children join public kindergartens”.

“At the same time, it was planned in the Ministry to convert as much as possible community kindergartens (of the parents' links) into public kindergartens in order to include a significant number of children from the children who will henceforth have free pre-primary education”.

At the same time, the Minister of Education announced that an additional action today is that “planning is being done by the technical services of the Ministry in order to increase the capacity of public kindergartens in the coming years where the buildings allow, so that more children can join”.< /p>

“The decision is that the utilization of public kindergartens will coincide with the increase in capacity, but at the same time private kindergartens will also be utilized”, he said and added that the goal is the financial possibility of 12.2 million euros provided by the Recovery and Resilience Plan “to give them to families so that children can benefit from free pre-primary education from the age of 4”.

He said that “the plans for 2024/25 and 2025/26 where the plan will obviously be made during the next administration” and expressed the hope that “the opportunity should not be lost” and that the legislative proposal that is in the Parliament be approved.

Mr. Prodromou invited everyone to think ” not only for the more than 8,000 children who will benefit in the coming years, but especially for the 1,500-2,000 children who are currently in public kindergartens under the age of 4 years and 8 months and are paying school fees”.

“With the approval of the bill by the Parliament, from the next school year these children will be exempted from school fees”, he concluded.

Source: www.reporter.com.cy

- Advertisement -AliExpress WW

More articles

- Advertisement -AliExpress WW

Latest article