MPs highlight overcrowding and safety concerns at Limassol primary schools

Limassol, Cyprus. Overcrowding and security concerns at primary schools in the Limassol area were discussed on Friday during a visit by MPs, who identified them as pressing challenges.

School operating above capacity

Members of the House education committee, representatives of parents’ associations and the teachers’ union Poed first visited the third primary school and nursery school in Ypsonas before continuing to schools in Omodos.

Committee chairman and Diko MP Chrysanthos Savvides said the primary school had been built with 13 classrooms and had an additional ten prefabricated classrooms. The nursery school had two rooms and four additional prefabricated rooms.

One classroom flooded following heavy rainfall earlier in the week, he said.

Constantinos Kareklas, head of the third primary school’s parents’ association, said overcrowding was worsening. The school had 456 children and was operating at 130 per cent of its capacity.

Calls for planning and resources

Poed president Myria Vasiliou said the school had been designed for fewer students and that all workshops had been cancelled to accommodate the larger number.

She called for proper planning, saying that “resources need to be found because all of this raises very serious safety issues” for both children and staff.

“The state should at last roll up its sleeves and start thinking about how to fix things and essentially support our public schools,” she added.

Savvides said prefabricated classrooms were inadequate and no solutions had been put forward.

“There is no vision. Plans should have been made for decades ahead and the problem is getting worse […] We will keep filling our schoolyards with huts,” he said.