‘Two new schools planned for Girne’
TWO new state schools are to be built in the Girne area, Education Minister Cemal Özyiğit has announced.
Mr Özyiğit said the town would get a new primary school and secondary school to help ease overcrowding in classrooms — a problem he said had been caused by the region’s growing population.
He made the announcement during a visit to the Karakum Nursery School and Çatalköy Primary School to gauge staff’s views on how best to address the issues. The move follows the four-party coalition government’s pledge to reduce class sizes, particularly in Girne. It also comes after parents held a series of demonstrations late last year, previously reported by Cyprus Today, when 90 children missed out on places at over-subscribed nursery schools in Girne.
“The best investment is investment in the education sector,” said Mr Özyiğit, a former teacher and trade unionist.
“Two new schools . . . are to be constructed in the Girne region. There is a need for a state policy . . . in consultation with teachers. Our aim is to find a solution to the problems by the end of this year.”
Mr Özyiğit also visited a site at Karakum where construction of a new 18-classroom secondary school has already begun, and said plans to build a primary school in the Püsküllü area of Girne, with 14 classrooms, were in the “final stages”.
The Cyprus Turkish Teachers’ Union claims that class sizes in the TRNC range from “32 to 42” compared to what they said was a European Union average of 20, and 24 in G20 countries.
Girne has 4,720 pupils enrolled in primary schools, 1,822 in middle schools, 972 in high schools and 49 in vocational school, with an average class size of over 30.