College fury at ministry claim of illegal work placements

By Martin Hellicar

PRIVATE colleges are incensed by Education Ministry claims that they bend the rules to secure their foreign students trainee placements with local hotels.

Foreign students following tourism-related courses are entitled to take up Summer job placements with local hotels as part of their training. But the Education Ministry stipulates that foreign college students only get what placements are left after Cypriots studying at the state-run Hotel Institute have been accommodated.

According to the Ministry’s director of tertiary education, Constantinos Yialoukas, private colleges do not follow the rules. Instead, colleges strike “illegal” deals with hotels to guarantee their foreign students placements, Yialoukas claimed on Monday.

Private colleges retorted yesterday, saying the official was guilty of tarring good and bad colleges with the same brush.

“The problem is that the Ministry uses generalisations,” the principal of one top private college in Nicosia told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

He said there might be some, less legitimate, establishments that were, at times, guilty of bending the rules, but the ministry’s criticisms could certainly not be applied to the vast majority of private colleges. “If the Ministry have something on some college they should name that college, otherwise they should say nothing,” he said.

He flatly denied that his college might be guilty of the kind of impropriety suggested by Yialoukas.

“We may not always stick to all the bureaucratic procedures but we certainly never do anything illegal,” he said.

These sentiments were echoed by the director of another top Nicosia private college.

He suggested the Ministry was making these statements because it was worried it could not control the numbers of foreign students working in the tourism industry.

There are some 3,500 foreign students on the island.

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