Following a decision of the Sectoral Council of Teachers, in the context of the escalation of the strike movements that preceded on 16/12/21 from 7: 30-9: 30 and after the approval of the Board of the Pancyprian Guild of Equality, the Sectoral Council of Teachers announces a stand of its members for a school week from 14/02/22 until 18/02/22.
According to a relevant announcement, for the Kindergartens, the Primary and Primary Education schools, the strike will take place on Monday 14/02, Tuesday 15/02, Wednesday 16/02, Thursday 17/02 and Friday 18/02 from 12:25- 13:05.
For the Secondary General and Secondary Technical Education schools, due to the fact that Thursday 17/02 has been designated as a teacher's day, the strike program is differentiated as follows: strike will take place on Monday 14/02, Tuesday 15/02, Wednesday 16/02 and Friday 18/02 from 12: 50-13: 35. On Thursday 17/02 the strike will be all day, it is added.
“The management of COVID-19, by the executive and other powers, has caused destabilization at all levels. “In schools of all levels, there is a climate of uncertainty, suspicion and insecurity due to the fear that is systematically cultivated but also due to the arbitrary measures that are constantly escalating.”
The measures, the union continues, “violate basic human rights of teachers and students and promote discrimination and bullying, secondly they lack scientific documentation and consequently violate any educational process. The beginning of every learning process is the human communication of all those involved in it, which is abolished by the continuous extension and escalation of measures. ”
Distances, masks, continuous testing, safe pass, scanning, conversion of teachers into police officers, nurses, doctors and “specialists”, bombardment with conflicting announcements about COVID-19, serious shortages of teaching staff, lack of interest from substitutes due to conditions work, in this paranoia, conducting four-month exams, abolition of holidays, in-school activities and educational trips, complete exclusion of the parent from the educational space, incomplete and insufficient information of the parents about his progress their child, taking on the role of teacher by the parent with wrong anti-pedagogical approaches, have brought about a rupture and imbalance in communication between teachers, students and guardians, ”he added.
Referring to the “test to stay”, the guild speaks of “another arbitrary and provocative measure that lacks scientific documentation, conveys ambiguous messages and confuses children.”
As he says, the measure “violates the personal space of children and has an impact on both their physical and mental health as they undergo a frequent process, soul-destroying and morally questionable.”
“And all this while the file of the case, for the existence of ethylene oxide in a specific batch of rods (swabs) for rapid test, has been handed over by the police investigators to the Attorney General and the conclusion is awaited,” he says.
He says that since it is internationally accepted that the Omicron mutation is milder with significantly reduced hospitalizations, the de-escalation of the measures should have already taken place in schools. “These ineffective measures as well as the failure to create the coveted wall of immunity but also the missteps and false news that expose our country internationally (such as the ridiculous and non-existent, as it appeared in a few days, Cypriot scientist's position on the non-existent “They have shaken public confidence in the advisory committee, in the 'experts', in the relevant ministries, sow panic in society and erode the moral, mental and intellectual health of children.”
He also says that many countries are moving towards a complete lifting of the measures, as Sweden and Britain decided this week to lift most of the restrictions, while since last week Denmark has been living “freely”.
On the occasion of the discussion about a possible tightening of the protocols in the kindergartens, the union states that they are strongly against it.
The demands of the co-operation include the complete lifting of measures in schools of all levels and in society in general, restoration of the human and social dimension of the school as well as cooperation within our schools, provision of human working conditions to substitutes to express interest in cases where There is also an immediate abolition of the “test to stay” and the rapid test in general, since the decision of the Attorney General is still pending.
“We stand against the mandatory vaccination of teachers, children and society in general. We are in favor of free choice and the right information “, concludes Equality.
ΚΥΠΕ
