Do schools really need regulations to promote tolerance?

FOR MOST of yesterday, deputies were squabbling on radio and television shows over some school regulations that had been submitted to the House Education Committee for discussion. The regulations had been amended by the Council of Ministers and submitted to the legislature without any discussions being held. The chairman of the House committee, angered by the government's decision to makes changes without informing the committee, called off Tuesday's meeting.

This sparked angry exchanges on air, with deputies accusing the government of trying to sneak through the changes that would supposedly give licence to the political parties to recruit secondary school children. The government was also attacked for not sending the regulations to the Attorney-general's office, which would have examined their constitutionality, before submitting them to the House.

It is difficult to understand why the Attorney-general would have to give approval to regulations dealing with platitudes about the right to freedom of expression. Then again it is difficult to understand what the point of these regulations was. Did the government really have to draft regulations, saying that students would have the freedom to express their opinions, as long as these did not incite hatred based on race, gender, religion or ethnicity? The regulations also stipulated that freedom of expression should not be used to promote the positions of political parties.

We would have thought that school heads and teachers would have punished incitement of racial hatred or any form of prejudice, without the need of special regulations. Has such behaviour gone unpunished until now because there were no regulations? It seems very peculiar that the education ministry needs to pass regulations for behaviour that a little common sense on the part of the teachers would resolve. Is there really a danger, of students verbally attacking children of a different religious belief and teachers doing nothing about it because there were no regulations governing freedom of expression?

Unless of course the government has decided to put an end to national day celebrations at school which sometimes incite hatred against other nationalities. For instance Greek Independence Day celebrations at schools do not exactly encourage reconciliation with Turkish Cypriots; and EOKA Day celebrations do not promote feelings of friendship towards the English. Perhaps this was why there was such a hostile reaction to the regulations by all the political parties apart from Akel. But if this was the intention the government should have made it clear from the start.

It is doubtful, though, that the government would dare take such a radical step as it would provoke a hysterical reaction by the political parties. The more likely explanation is that the regulations were just a gesture to show that something was being done to promote tolerance in our schools. And maybe people would forget about the long list of problems plaguing the state education system, about which nothing is being done and nobody is complaining. Certainly not the deputies who are more concerned about meaningless changes to unimportant regulations.

Copyright [c] Cyprus Mail 2008

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