Our View: Nobody should listen to Oelmek about university admissions

A few days after the University of Cyprus (UCy) announced that it would accept students who had sat international exams (GCEs, IB) to undergraduate courses at which there were available places, the teaching union Oelmek went on the offensive. It condemned the “provocative stance of the University of Cyprus, which continued to act arbitrarily and unlawfully”, claiming the decision contravened the law governing the Pancyprian exams and the regulations for admissions to the university.

The union of secondary school teachers also took the role of defenders of public education, which was undermined by such actions which “promote the privatisation of Cyprus education”. Worse still, according to Oelmek, the admission of students from private schools “violate the principle of equality, provoke the feelings of graduates of public and private schools and simultaneously constitute privileged treatment and discrimination against all children that sat the Pancyprian exams”.

We hear the same sermon every year, the bosses of Oelmek feeling they have the authority to dictate the admissions policy of UCy, based on union values. The suggestion that the empty places should be filled by students who had not received the required marks in the Pancyprian exams because this would serve the “principle of equality” is absurd. These students failed to receive a place because their entry exam results indicated they would not be able to cope with university study.

In other words, the union wants the university to take students of a lower standard, who might not be up to university study, simply because they sat the Pancyprian exams and there were empty places to fill. This is consistent with the union values that promote mediocrity and shun excellence because they derive their power from championing the interests of the mediocre majority. A university, however, is a forum for educational excellence which has an obligation to promote and maintain the highest possible standards.

Ideally, UCy should not only offer the places left empty to students of private schools but should open up admissions to all. Parents of private school students also pay taxes that go towards the upkeep of the UCy and should not be eligible only for courses in which there are unfilled places. Is this the type of equality that Oelmek is promoting? It is supporting discrimination against teenagers whose parents chose to send them to private school because they felt these offered a better standard of education than public schools.

If Oelmek bosses are so concerned about protecting public education, why do they not undertake initiatives to raise standards. The reason more and more people are sending their children to private school is because they feel they would get a better education there than in the public school system. These standards will not be raised by public school students monopolising all the places at public universities, but by improving the quality of public education. The main way of doing this is would be by drastically improving teaching standards, something Oelmek has no interest in, because it might involve a bit more work for its members.

Nobody should be listening to Oelmek about university admissions policy, because ultimately its only concern is its members’ easy life. It is certainly not a high standards of university education.