Students protest over retirement age plan

AROUND 500 students staged a protest at the Presidential Palace yesterday calling on the government not to increase the retirement age.

According to student union POFEN, an increase in the public sector retirement age from 60 to 63 will result in massive employment for today’s youth. The students are especially concerned about jobs that will fail to open up in the teaching sector.

The students had demanded a meeting with President Tassos Papadopoulos, but were instead greeted by the president’s undersecretary Giorgos Hadjianastasiou.

Holding banners and shouting slogans, the students gathered yesterday morning at the Presidential Palace after setting off from the PASYDY offices at around 11am.

“We had a meeting with the undersecretary to the president and we handed him a petition with 10,000 signatures that have been collected from students in Cyprus, abroad but also from school pupils,” said POFEN Chairman Paris Constantinou.

“We believe that increasing the retirement age will cause unemployment, especially for youngsters, and will also cause other problems too,” he added.

The petition handed in at the Presidential Palace noted that students not only disagreed with the plan to the increase the retirement age, but also with government plans to preclude the optional age retirement in the private sector.

He continued: “Extending the retirement age will not solve the problems with social insurance or with the economy in general. Quite the opposite, it will create a string of problems in society. Changing the retirement age is an issue that concerns us too because it will play a role in our lives in the future.”

Yesterday’s gathering at the Presidential Palace was the second such protest.

In February 2005, students gathered outside the Ministry of Finance to protest over the retirement age issue.

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