Recently, the minister of Education gathered the directors of 3 public and 3 private universities in order to setup a new trend of Cyprus education, which will bring more investments to the Educational system and create a promising basis for making Cyprus the centre of Mediterranean Education.
The news were quite positive: due to huge outflow of local students (55% in Cyprus vs. 3% in EU), the Educational system will get more subsidies in order to develop its infrastructure and increase the level of education.
Work Permit
Past:According to official permissions – foreign students are allowed to work, but most of the fields where you might be sent do not have anything in common with what you’ve been studying. For example, undergraduate BA student might be found in agricultural sector collecting olives.
Future: Now, the Ministry of Education is about to lobby the work permit equally for foreign students as well, as the solution for illegal residence, and working experience. We’ve been hearing these stories for long time, thus a big percentage of scepticism remains about the easiness of making this come true.
Research Centres and Grants
Past: in most of the cases, all the grants, exchange programmes were about the local students, – you weren’t simply told about these activities in the Uni to take part. The highest GPA wasn’t giving you the right of studying for free, comparing with local students.
Future: Concerning the recent news, foreign students will finally get the access for grant and exchange programmes as well, equally with the locals. The problem with campuses will be partially solved as well.
Language Problem
Past: (and Present), mainstream faculties are taught in English, but the other part of them remain in Greek. The opportunity of obtaining PhD degree is owned by the Public University of Cyprus, and of course in Greek. Master programmes are also limited by the number of disciplines, which cuts the time of students staying in Cyprus for obtaining their degrees.
Future: This issue will be solved by switching more faculties to English, and finally giving out the chance of Private Universities provide high degrees of education, like PhD, MsPhil, etc.
Overall
The newspapers, and TV discussing this story shown that the Ministry of Education at least realizes their long-run problems. Hopefully they’ll get at least 30% closer to what they’re planning to do, that will be enough to show all the financial opportunities in investing to Education then in just selling houses.
English
Russian