ALMOST half of Cyprus’ primary school pupils have been referred to psychologists, a report has found.
According to an annual report conducted by the Ministry of Education for 2003-2004, 3,381 primary school pupils were referred to child psychologists, with 2,158 being referred for the first time. The figure is down on the previous academic year.
By far the majority of pupils, 66.4 per cent, taken to psychologists in the Educational Psychology Services (EPS) are boys.
Child Psychologist and Family Councilor Doros Michaelides told the Cyprus Mail that the main root of the problem lay in the upbringing of the children and the fact that some teachers may be inadequate to deal with misbehaving children.
“There is a problem in the way some people are bringing up their children. We have a smaller of number of female pupils being sent to Educational Psychology Services (EPS) because girls are basically taught to do what they’re told and to focus on their education, whereas boys are taught to stand up for themselves and in a way be ‘the man of the house’ at a young age; that can make them rebellious and undisciplined.
“Another issue could be a pupil-teacher communication problem, which basically means the problem is the education system. For example, some teachers may have problems controlling a pupil who refuses to do what he or she is told and a teacher may not be able to handle the pupil’s reaction to power.
“The education system may not be drawing enough attention to the ‘air’ of adolescence in terms of ‘a life situation’, but instead looks at the problem as a job, and insists that the teacher should just do his or her job. Therefore, when a teacher cannot contain a misbehaving pupil then he or she is just sent to a psychologist.”
Michaelides also believes that more should be done by the Ministry to ensure that there are enough psychologists in schools around the island.
“I believe we have a very big shortage of child psychologists on the island. There should really be at least one child psychologist per school on the island, instead of just 30 for the whole island. The main goal should be helping the child out if he or she has a problem.”
Despite the high number of pupils directed to psychologists, the number for 2003-2004 is much lower compared to that of 2002-2003, when 4,093 pupils were referred to the EPS.
“There could be a couple of reasons as to why the number of pupils visiting the EPS have gone down. One reason could be that schools have created policies to allow pupils to solve their problems through different channels, whereas another reason could be that schools are changing their obedience rules and that pupils feel that they are in a more controlled environment.”
