Bi-communal education committee members to be announced this month

By George Psyllides

THE members of a bi-communal committee on education are expected to be announced this month and it will start working immediately afterwards, Education minister Costas Kadis said on Friday.

The decision to set up a technical committee on education was made last month by President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci in an effort to tackle racism, xenophobia, and extremism.

“Co-operation through the committee’s operation can highlight the wider values and principles we all think youths should have,” Kadis said.

Such values were accepting diversity, respect of different opinions, cultivation of democratic ethos, and opposition to hate language.

The committee will review existing research and good practices in education in Cyprus and abroad and undertake new research on how education can contribute to conflict transformation, peace and reconciliation.

There will also be contact and co-operation between pupils and educators from the two communities.

“At the same time, we will build better prospects for coexistence in this country,” Kadis said.

The minister said only positive things will come out of it if the committee works properly.

Kadis said the committee was not the result of incidents in Nicosia in which pupils, out to protest the declaration of the breakaway state on November 15, attacked Turkish Cypriots.

“It was something that was being discussed for some time now and ideas had been submitted from before on how this committee could be effective,” the minister said.

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.