PARENTS of children attending the village primary school in Choletria have stopped their children attending school in protest over cutbacks which will cut the number of what should be six classes to just two.
Lavrentios Polycarpou, the district officer of pubic education said that the number of children attending the school in the Paphos village had fallen to 27 from 29 last year.
“These cuts are as a result of the economic crisis and there will be no exceptions applied to any schools, as regards the regulations and permitted teaching time,” Polycarpou said.
The Muktah of Choletria and president of the school committee, Kyriakos Papalazarou, urged the ministry of education to look beyond the “numerical and financial” aspects of education and instead consider “the realities of the values in operating the school to give an equal chance of education to all children in the greater area of Choletria.”
He said last year the school was forced to operate with three classes by merging the first and second years, the third and fourth years and the fifth and sixth years. This year there will be just two classes for the whole schools.
Papalazarou said that if this decision is implemented standards will drop and the school may be forced to close down and have a tremendously negative effect on society in the area.
“There are a number of Gypsy children from the surrounding neighbourhood of Stavrou Konnou, as well as a number of kids from very poor families,” he said, adding that the ministry of education should consider this specific school in a special light.
Polycarpou said that although the education ministry was tightening its belt due to the economic crisis, he also confirmed a number of school improvement projects, which have been completed or are underway in Paphos.
He said that the number of local Cypriot children attending primary schools in Paphos remains consistent, adding that in Paphos town there are 14 state primary schools and 10 nursery schools. In the whole district of Paphos, there are 45 primary school with 5,920 pupils and 34 nursery schools with 1,650 children. The number of foreign pupils enrolled in Paphos state schools has risen to 100.
“These are mostly pupils from Romania and Bulgaria,” he said.
Polycarpou said that renovation work is underway in five Paphos schools, which mostly involves anti seismic precautions and other safety measures. It also involves extending some of the buildings.
According to the district officer the new school year has started well in Paphos with the exception of three schools, which are being affected by a variety of roadworks.
The first of these is Emba School. The teachers, pupils, students and their parents are facing access difficult caused by delayed upgrading work to improve the sewerage system in the area.
In the meantime, the mayor of Paphos, Savvas Vergas, visited the areas by the lyceum of Ayios Neophytos and the Apostolos Pavlos gymnasium, both of which are being adversely affected by road works underway connected with the second phase of the north circular ring road.
The mayor met with the contractors and other services, to try to speed up the flagging works. It was decided that the contractor would also be working at weekends from now on, in order to speed up the work on the large roundabout. This is situated south of Paphos general hospital, which once completed, said Vergas, will greatly reduce the amount of traffic in the area.
