AS THE FIRST day of the school year draws closer, confusion continues to prevail on what exactly students will be wearing when they return to class.
As the situation stands, pupils have been instructed to buy their normal school uniforms – white blouse, grey trousers or skirt and blue blouse – and await the final decision of the Council for Secondary and Higher Education. The council will meet on September 6 tasked with the verdict of whether students will be allowed to wear jeans as well.
But Pupils Union PSEM have said that if they are not allowed to wear jeans to school they will call for drastic measures
According to PSEM president Ermioni Georgiou, the pupils’ main bone of contention is the fact that former Education Minister, the late Pefkios Georgiades, signed a document allowing jeans into the school uniform. The decision was revoked after new minister Akis Cleanthous took over.
“From the moment that Mr Georgiades made the decision to allow jeans, why has the ministry come and changed it?” she wondered. “This makes people consider them non-credible.”
Georgiou dismissed the possibility that allowing pupils to wear jeans to school would provoke problems among the different classes of children.
“We are not living in utopia. In Cyprus, the average person is middle class, so I believe that the few pupils who do decide to come to school wearing Levis or Dolce & Gabbana will eventually begin to feel like the odd ones out.
“And anyway, you can see the difference in classes in school without the jeans with pupils’ mobile phones, their rucksacks and even the grey trousers. You can tell which ones are tailor-made and which ones are from a supermarket. I don’t think the introduction of jeans will make it worse.”
On behalf of the Education Ministry, Senior Officer Costas Katsonis said the ministry was clear in its instructions last June, when pupils registered for the new year.
“Parents and pupils received an official letter by the ministry in June, where the required uniform was specified,” he told the Cyprus Mail.
The letter, said Katsonis, informed pupils that no matter what, they would have to purchase the normal uniform and that the decision on jeans would be made after the Council meeting. The official school uniform will be worn during official events and holidays.
He explained there would be no changes in uniform for gymnasium pupils. “If the Council, which consists of educational bodies, parents and pupils, decides on September 6 to allow jeans into the school uniform, this will apply only for lyceums.”
Katsonis also pointed out that parents were strongly opposed to jeans as it was not financially beneficial to them.
“I refer you back to 2005, when former minister Pefkios Georgiades was in the process of the educational reform and he decided each school should choose its own uniform, and parents and pupils could not come to an agreement, which resulted in the law being changed in Parliament, putting the ministry in charge of setting one uniform for all schools,” he said.
He admitted the meeting had been appointed late, considering schools will start operations just five days after the Council meeting.
“Even if there are delays, this is the law and we must adhere to it,” said Katsonis, adding: “I hope we come to a consensual agreement.”
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