Some schools in the north receive just 0.12 toilet rolls per pupil per year from the ‘education ministry’, according to Cyprus Turkish Teachers’ Union (Ktos) General Secretary Burak Mavish.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail on Wednesday evening, Mavish said “not even a whole toilet roll was given to every child.”

He said there are schools where “there are 186 children, but 24 toilet rolls were sent” to last the year.

He added, “they sent 192 toilet rolls to a different school, but it is a bigger school. There are 544 pupils there.”

Earlier, he had said “45 days after schools opened, the cleaning and hygiene materials sent by the education minister have begun to arrive in our schools. We would like to point out that the materials delivered are not sufficient in terms of cleanliness and hygiene.”

He added, “this is not sustainable. Teachers are already burdened with the social and psychological problems of their students as well as the task of educating people in overcrowded classrooms.”

“Now, school administrators and parent-teacher associations are burdened with issues such as school budgets, renovations and repairs, and the construction of new schools is left to the will of philanthropists. Education cannot be managed like this,” he added.