refuses evaluation and meritocracy

And if someone wants to behave properly, the unionists will not let them. Why? Because the backward clique of the Federation of Secondary Education Teachers (OLME), in order to prove that it is working, calls strikes at regular intervals. For example:

In February 2021, it declared a strike-abstention from the evaluation procedures of school units. Among other things, it stated: “We declare our opposition to the government's plans for the evaluation of the school unit and for the individual evaluation of teachers...”.

Also, more recently (June 2021), it called a three-hour work stoppage and urged teachers not to accept appointments as invigilators for the exams of model schools. Among other things, it said: “OLME is well known for its complete opposition to the institution of Model Schools, due to their anti-pedagogical and deeply class-based character.”

Some citizens may ask in good faith: Who are these people who want to replace the government? Answer: They are the ones who claim to perform a public service but have unionism as their profession. They have fought evaluation and meritocracy for forty years. They are the ones who have destroyed education. They rose within OLME and later within ADEDY by virtue of party loyalty and ideological cretinism.

It is proven that OLME does not care about the quality of education. Its principle is “let the lame and the crooked all be in education.” Only the incompetence of these lame and crooked educators is paid for by the poor children, and by their families. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the pseudo-left unionists of OLME want first and foremost. And fine, unionists from OLME are party instruments, whose creed is confrontation and the “principle of least effort.”

But what is the Minister of Education doing? She stated that the omnibus bill on education includes a provision stipulating that teachers who abstain from the internal and external evaluation of school units will be excluded from competing for Education Executive positions.

Furthermore, a senior official of the Ministry of Education stressed that this is not a “punitive” measure. So is the government afraid to establish evaluation?

It is certain that some useless, lazy, indifferent, and so on, teachers do not care about this provision, because they are not interested in becoming Education Executives. Thus, they will continue to “warp” our children. And the state, because of its incompetence, will cheerfully say: Everything is fine, everything is wonderful with evaluation.

Is there a solution? Certainly there is. A reasonable and self-evident solution. Specifically, we need a one-sentence provision stating: Any teacher who abstains from the evaluation of the school unit, or does not wish to be evaluated himself or herself, is dismissed. Simple, clear, straightforward.

By the way, should tenure for public employees be abolished? How long can a society feed the lazy, the indifferent and the useless?

The Greek society, parents and students demand that the government move immediately toward the evaluation of school units and teachers.

According to international education standards, we lag significantly in several areas. Fortunately, we have good human resources, and that partly compensates for the incompetence of the state and the shortcomings of the education system.

Improving the education provided requires the evaluation of everything, and above all of teachers. It should be noted that evaluation and meritocracy exist in all developed countries of the world.

It is astonishing why the left-wing union federation of secondary education teachers has been opposing evaluation and meritocracy for forty years. And since no sensible person can explain the “why,” let us ask an astrologer, a seer, or a coffee-reader to explain the “why”.

Some with good intentions will say: Why do we not accept OLME's explanations? We do not accept them, because OLME's explanations are misleading and addressed to people ranging from fools to cretins. That is why the overwhelming majority of teachers have turned their backs on them.

And the very fact that OLME has refused evaluation and meritocracy in education for forty years proves the ideological and pedagogical myopia of its unionists.

Paulos Marantos

marantosp@gmail.com