THE ORGANISATION responsible for recruiting new teachers has confirmed that hundreds of extra staff have been appointed in preparation for the introduction of children with special needs into mainstream schools this September.
Last year, a total of 170 were taken on, but only 29 have been appointed so far this year.
“We are currently waiting for the go-ahead before we sign on any new teachers for this area,” said Christos Theopholides, the Chairman of the Education Service Committee.
He explained that the committee could only appoint people once they had received detailed instructions from the Education Ministry.
Earlier this week, left-wing opposition party, AKEL, accused the government of failing to make the necessary changes in time for the new system, which should come into effect this autumn.
It said no special training had been given to existing teachers and that class sizes had not been reduced to allow for the influx of special needs children, despite the fact that the actual law was changed two years ago.
However, Frixos Demetriades, the Chief Education Officer, argued the ministry had put in a lot of effort to make sure mainstream schools were ready for their arrival.
“We have been working very hard and it’s typical that some people are complaining,” he told the Mail.
Similarly Theopholides was quick to defend the department, and he said that as far as he was aware, Education Minister Ouranios Ioannides had given the matter his full attention.
“We are told each year exactly who we should be appointing, according to the needs of the island and as yet we are still waiting for more information regarding this year’s intake, but I’m confident we’ll find out soon.”
Another source from the Education Service Committee confessed they had been forced to employ a significant number of foreigners to fill the posts, as while it was easy to fill the regular jobs, it was not so easy to find the appropriate staff for the special needs vacancies. “There’s a big emphasis on employing locally,” she said, “but this isn’t always possible and we have had to take on people with special status, such as those who have a Cypriot parent or people who have lived here for more than five years.”
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.
