Over 50,000 primary school children attend first day of new year

Primary schools reopened on Monday, marking the end of the summer holidays and the beginning of the new school year, with over 50,000 children enrolled at primary schools across the island this year.

In total, there are 51,950 children enrolled at primary schools and 13,117 children enrolled at nursery schools, with 7,557 teachers employed to educate them.

Additionally, there are nine special schools and 145 special units for children with special educational needs.

To mark the beginning of the new school year, President Nikos Christodoulides attended the Paralimni middle school. Middle schools and high schools officially started back on Friday but were having their first full days of the academic year on Monday.

He did make reference to the beginning of the school year for primary schools, and chose to highlight the smallest and most isolated school on the island – that of the village of Kampos, which is nestled in the north of the Paphos forest, southwest of Lefka and northwest of the highest peaks of the Troodos mountains.

“Yesterday, I was in Milikouri, a very small village near the Kykkos monastery, and I was talking to the people of the area and they told me, though it was something that I knew, that in Kambos, we have two children, and that based on the laws, it is not justified to have a primary school with two children in it,” he began.

He said that the government had in spite of this decided to allow the school to open for another year.

“We decided that these two children should have the same rights and the same opportunities as the children of their age who are in Strovolos, in Nicosia, and so we decided to operate the school in Kambos with two children in it. This is indicative of the importance we give to education,” he said.

He also spoke about the Paralimni middle school, saying that the government has spent €5.5 million to upgrade the school, while also promising to build a new athletics school in the area, which is set to cost around €15m.

The contracts for the construction of that school, he said, are to be signed on Monday.

Additionally, he spoke about what he described as the “famous” issue of air conditioning in schools, pointing out that 45 per cent of schools are now air conditioned, and promising that by 2028, “we will have air conditioning in all schools”.