Press Release
Teachers strike to save the Melkonian Educational Institute

 

Since the announcement (last Autumn) of the AGBU’s declared intention to close the Melkonian Educational Institute in the year 2005, we the teaching staff have shown tremendous restraint and patience towards the AGBU’s insulting and unfounded assertions made in their position paper of 16th March that: 

  • We do not provide excellent opportunities for our students
  • The educational provision and performance in our school is of a low standard.

In November 2003 and in April 2004 we requested to be shown the evidence by which the AGBU reached the above conclusions especially in the absence of any lesson observations or any other assessment of the learning that takes place in our school. We have not as yet had any response to our requests.
 

Since then we have been told by Mr Gordon Anderson, the AGBU’s representative on site (an accountant by profession), that the AGBU does not intend to close the School – only the dormitories which host over 75% of the students. This is an insult to our intelligence. How can anybody expect a school to be run when its student population is reduced from 210 students to just over 50! It is worth noting here that last year the school’s population was reduced from 260 to 210 after the AGBU unilaterally decided to reduce scholarships to underprivileged children from the Armenian Diaspora. Closing the dormitories amounts to closing the school.

During the last few days, while the teaching and other staff in the school have been patiently toiling away to prepare students for their external and internal exams, members of the administration staff, entrusted by the AGBU, have been quietly ringing students’ parents to discourage them from sending their children to the MEI next year; this is in total contradiction to the fact that last April the AGBU published an advertisement in the press for new enrolments for the academic year 2004-2005!

In the meantime, our polite request for the AGBU to retract the ridiculous assertions mentioned above to this day remains unanswered. For these reasons the staff at MEI is in no doubt that:

  • The AGBU is trying to use the teaching staff as a scapegoat for their decision to close the school in order to sell the land on which it stands.
  • Devious methods are being used to reduce the student population of the school in order to turn it into a non-viable school and ultimately to close it.
  • The AGBU is implementing a preconceived plan. These actions by the AGBU are coming at a time when the school has been attracting an increasing number of students from the Greek Cypriot and other communities in Cyprus.
  • We are the ones that genuinely care for the young people in our charge and, unfortunately, must come to the conclusion that open, honest and reasonable behaviour is simply taken advantage of whilst others deal contemptuously with students' and teachers' lives and careers.

 We are left with no other option than to bring the above grievances to public attention by:

·        Taking industrial action on Thursday 27th May from 7.30 am to 2.00 pm.

·        Refusing to give end of year grades or engaging in writing any end of year reports until the AGBU retracts its unfounded and damaging assertions about the quality of teaching and learning that goes on in our school. If the AGBU considers us, the teaching staff of MEI, as incompetent teachers it cannot expect us to function as competent assessors. The AGBU cannot have it both ways.

We call upon the parents of our existing students not to fall victim to the AGBU’s attempts to discourage them from sending their children to the MEI next year and to join our campaign to keep the MEI open for future generations of students.

 Finally, we would like to invite the public to demonstrate their solidarity by visiting our picket line on the 27th May in front of the school gate that has been guarding the school for the last 80 years. This time the threat is from within…

The Staff of Melkonian Educational Institute.

26th May 2004