Teachers marched to the Prime Minister’s Palace and called on the government to resign

The Cyprus Turkish Secondary School Teachers’ Union (KTOEÖS) held a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s building and publicly demanded the government’s resignation.

The participants carried a symbolic coffin with the inscriptions “Teachers’ Rights”, “Public Rights”, “Scientific Secular Education”, and “Children’s Rights”, stating that they would continue their struggle against the authorities’ education policies. The protest was also attended by teachers from the Rauf Raif Denktaş High School, the Bülent Ecevit Anatolian High School, and members of the union’s executive board. They unfolded a banner reading: “We will not bow to your attacks; we will not allow you to place a shroud on education, teachers, and society.”

The chair of KTOEÖS, Selma Eylem, stated that secular education and the role of the teacher “have been sacrificed to politics,” and that the symbolic coffin represents “public education, laws, regulations, children’s rights, teachers’ rights, and their working conditions.” According to her, the government and the Ministry of Education “have buried education under pressure and interventions,” yet the union intends to continue its struggle.

Eylem also reported that the case against 22 teachers, who had previously been prosecuted, was withdrawn today.

The KTOEÖS Secretary General, Tahir Gökçebel, in his speech accused the government and the ministry of having “effectively written off” public schools and attempting to punish and intimidate teachers. He noted that schools continue to function “thanks to the efforts of administrators and educators,” while the ministry, in his words, only increases the pressure. Gökçebel stressed that the union will not allow education to be pushed into the background or the pressure on teachers to intensify.