THE GOVERNMENT is set to join forces with the private colleges in an international campaign to inform foreign students about their rights and obligations.
Announcing the move yesterday, Education Minister Ouranios Ioannides said: “The campaign will be taking place all over the world, with special emphasis put on China.”
There has been a notable rise in recent years in the number of Chinese students coming to Cyprus.
The Minister also said the Cabinet would begin discussion next month on giving certain private colleges university status.
“We estimate that all the suggestions for legislation on the matter will be presented to the Cabinet in about one month from today,” he said.
Ioannides added that courses at two more private colleges had received government accreditation, namely CDA College and the Tsaousis Secretarial College. More than 10 other institutions had failed to pay the necessary evaluation fee and, while some of their courses contained the necessary criteria, they would not be officially recognised until this was done.
A wide range of courses from various colleges throughout Cyprus were awarded with government accreditation on January 17 last year.
The Minister said that while support to public institutions would continue, mainly because they were often targeted at the less financially well off, private colleges would also be encouraged in their growth as this would cultivate a more competitive market.
He said special attention had to be paid to the government-run Higher Technological Institute and the Higher Hotel and Catering Institute. “We have seen that the public tertiary educational institutions that existed before the University of Cyprus have a double problem because, although classes are taught in English, they are eclipsed by the colleges in terms of private students, while less and less Cypriot students are opting to attend.”
The president of the committee set up to evaluate the colleges for government accreditation, Costas Papanicholas, said yesterday that 57 per cent of all Cypriot students studied at private colleges.
He said that since certain diplomas and degrees had received recognition, 40 per cent more students had registered to take them, while non-accredited courses had seen a corresponding decline.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
