Work starts on primary school site
WORK has begun on a new primary school in the Lefkoşa region. Prime Minister Hamza Ersan Saner, Education Minister Olgun Amcaoğlu and Suat Günsel, the billionaire owner of Near East University who is funding the new school construction, were among the dignitaries to take part in a recent ground-breaking ceremony.
The school is being built in the Yenikent area of Gönyeli under plans, previously reported by Cyprus Today, by Dr Günsel’s Near East Enterprises (NEE) to built six new primary schools in the TRNC’s six districts.
They will be handed over to the government upon completion for free and run as state schools, all named after Dr Günsel.
Each school will have the capacity to educate 500 children based on a protocol that was signed between the National Education and Culture Ministry and NEE in late January.
The Yenikent school is being built on 14 dönüms of land and represents a significant development for the area where there is “not a single educational institution”, PM Saner said. It is hoped that it will be finished in time for the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.
Discussions on the need for a new school in the area “have lasted for 20 years”, Mr Amcaoğlu added.
Speaking at the ceremony, NEE board of trustees chair Prof Dr İrfan Suat Günsel – Suat Günsel’s son – noted that the five other schools will be built in Girne, Gazimağusa, İskele, Güzelyurt and Lefke “simultaneously . . . once the land has been designated”.
“The foundations laid here today are not just the foundations of a school building… [but the] foundations of a vision we have cultivated in this country . . . of strong, lasting steps taken into the future,” Prof Günsel said.
The schools to be “gifted to the country’s children” will be an “indication of our belief in this land”, he said
Prof Günsel added that NEE continues to make investments to “strengthen our country’s economy, as well as its culture, health and education” such as the Near East Yeniboğaziçi campus library, the Cyprus Museum of Modern Art, the Günsel electric car production plant and the Suat Günsel Mosque, which has been under construction since 2013.
NEE has been exerting “ourselves for 43 years in order to deepen our roots in our country” Prof Günsel stated.
Mr Amcaoğlu thanked the Günsel family “as a child of Gönyeli, as a father and as the National Education and Culture Minister” for their philanthropy which will “brighten up the future of our children”.
Mr Amcaoğlu added that plans were under way for pupils at state-run vocational high schools to take part in the production of the Günsel car.