THE EDUCATION Ministry has vowed to investigate two mass brawls that took place earlier this week in Paphos and Limassol schools, vowing to bring the guilty parties to justice.
On Thursday, a teacher and several pupils were taken to hospital after fighting broke out at the Ethnarch Makarios I Lyceum in Paphos, while three pupils were arrested in Limassol on Wednesday after a huge fight erupted between pupils attending Lanitis Lyceum ‘A’ and Lyceum ‘B’.
The Ministry’s Secondary Education spokesman, Andreas Skotinos, yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that, “we must take into consideration all the details of the two cases and have asked for further information. The most important thing is to find out the reasons behind this type of behaviour and to get to the bottom of each individual case.”
He added that over the years, violence in some form or another, has taken place in schools all around the world. “We must promote measures to support both a school’s ethos and pupils’ personal lives by co-operating with their families and social services. Violence in schools is often seen as a direct result of the social and/or psychological state of mind of an individual.”
According to police sources, the incident in Limassol was due to a long-running vendetta between some of the pupils of the two schools, who had pre-arranged the brawl. Officers rushed to a school playground after pupils began hurling stones, eggs, fruit and smoke grenades at one another.
“Anyone witnessing this would have thought a civil war had just broken out,” an officer at the scene later said.
In Paphos the following day, the school had arranged a fiesta to celebrate ‘Tsiknopempti’ – the last Thursday before Lent when people traditionally eat grilled meat – but pupils from other schools in the town crashed the party and started fighting.
At one point, things turned nasty as knives and skewers were used. A teacher was released from hospital later in the day after sustaining minor back injuries.
Headmaster Thrasos Papanastasiou said he knew the culprit who started the trouble and would be passing the information on to the police.
The fracas prompted a response from Justice Minister Doros Theodorou who said that, “although criminal activities on the island have decreased, incidents involving young people have increased.”
Skotinos added that, “obviously, we cannot with any certainty say that these types of incidents will never happen again, as conflicts can be seen in all walks of life. However, the investigations will find out who the guilty parties are, and disciplinary procedures will be instigated by the relevant teachers’ councils and in accordance with the regulations of the schools. People will be held accountable.
“Violence, in and out of schools cannot be tolerated, and we are trying very hard to come up with ways to reduce and if possible prevent incidents like these from happening again in the future.”
