IN ADDITION to the topographical and political concerns posed by the lengthy United Nations peace plan, one provision has been raising eyebrows on both sides of the Green Line: mandatory Greek and Turkish language instruction.
Article 45, entitled “Teaching of Official Languages,” enforces teaching the nation’s official languages to all secondary school students. If this aspect of the plan remains unchanged, within three years of the agreement, secondary school students, regardless of ethnic origin, would learn both Greek and Turkish alongside their other required lessons.
The Ministry of Education and Culture has not prepared a response to the provision yet, but language inspector Costas Markou said the teaching of foreign languages was consistent with the Greek Cypriot education system’s multilingual emphasis.
“The tendency in Europe today is for multilingualism, so as a matter of principal, we also promote multilingualism,” Markou said.
Cyprus’ 110 secondary schools offer seven languages to their 60,000 students, but Turkish isn’t one of them. A combination of lack of interest and the challenge of finding qualified instructors has foiled past attempts to introduce Turkish classes.
Markou said afternoon Turkish classes had long been available at state institutes for further education and at the university, but added few Greek Cypriots had enrolled in the programs.
UN sources said Article 45 was intended to promote better understanding between the conflicting communities by increasing communication, leading to fewer misunderstandings. The precedent has been set by other nations with multiple official languages, such as Canada and Switzerland, where schoolchildren learn each language, the sources said.
The European Union has also encouraged Greeks and Turks to learn each other’s languages. In 1997, it funded a two-day international conference on Cypriot, Greek and Turkish literature at London’s Middlesex University, where organisers and academics suggested that language study could pave the way towards a better understanding between the communities.
Yet many Greek Cypriots are questioning the practicality of enforcing the study of Turkish, a language spoken by less than 20 per cent of the island’s population, at the expense of other lessons. The UN plan does not elaborate on how the integration of Turkish classes would impact the current foreign language curriculum, at what age they would be introduced or for how many years the courses would be mandatory.
In the public schools, English is a compulsory subject from the last three years of primary education through the first four years of secondary school, and French is mandatory for the first four years of secondary school. Afterwards, students may choose to continue studying those languages, or opt to learn Italian, Spanish, German and Russian.
Markou said private schools had a history of some curriculum flexibility, and therefore no one could predict whether the mandate would apply to those students as well.
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.
