The House education committee on Wednesday called for a show of “political will” and the president’s intervention in resolving recurring issues surrounding the appointments of assistants for special needs students.

The committee met to discuss the issue ahead of the beginning of the new school year, as there is an urgent need to hire more special assistants for pupils with special needs or disabilities.

According to figures provided by the education ministry, this school year it has employed around 1,100 assistants, of whom 813 will work at primary schools, and 298 at secondary and technical schools.

However, as committee head Pavlos Mylonas pointed out, these are not enough to cover the 2,300 requests lodged by parents and pupils.

Mylonas said that around €3 million is needed to cover the gap this year, which “unfortunately, the education ministry cannot meet”.

This amount will enable the hiring of 600 to 700 individuals, “a temporary solution while the committee smooths out structural and institutional issues this year,” he said.

This money “can be found, and my personal opinion – and one I believe the committee shares – is that we can get there if the president intervenes”.

The committee’s goal should be to improve education quality, especially for children with disabilities, Disy’s George Karoullas said. “In this case, this can be achieved through modernising the institution of the pupil assistant – which is of utmost importance.”

In a similar vein, Akel’s Christos Christophides said that “special education is sadly the Cypriot education system’s poor cousin,” with antiquated legislation blocking any attempts towards improvements.

“The reason we constantly find ourselves here is that we are dealing with anachronistic legislation written in 1999, while we are in 2021,” Dipa MP Alekos Tryfonides said.

He added that the party has been in touch with parents and organisations representing children with special education needs, who said they were “tired of fighting a state that ignores them”.

“Our children have been reduced to numbers. Our children have souls, [but] they have been pushed aside,” they reportedly said.