Parents and associations representing children with disabilities made serious allegations at a meeting of the parliamentary education committee.
They stated that some private schools in Cyprus refuse to admit children with special needs, hiding behind internal rules and the “right to select students.”
Thus, the father of a child with Down syndrome said that a private kindergarten refused to accept his son only because of the diagnosis. Such cases caused outrage among deputies, who called on the Ministry of Education to conduct inspections. Parents' associations have demanded that the licenses of schools that violate European and international standards by discriminating against children be suspended.
The main problems raised at the meeting: refusal to admit children with disabilities to private kindergartens and schools, lack of school assistants for children with special needs in private educational institutions, some parents are not even allowed to pay for support at their own expense, which actually forces children to leave school, public schools receive funding for assistants, but private schools do not, even if the child is officially recognized as needing support.
The ministry explained that if the special committee approves the child to be accompanied to a public school, the state will provide an assistant. But such financial support is not provided for private schools. At the same time, private schools are only required to inform about available free services, but not to cover the costs of them. It was also revealed that some private schools prohibit parents from hiring assistants themselves - which the committee called another form of discrimination.
The representative of the Association of Private Schools, Yorgos Kritikos, noted that admission to secondary schools is based on exam results, and further issues are regulated by internal rules. He also added that the state saves about €10,000-15,000 on each child attending a private school and should therefore at least partially cover the costs for children who need to be accompanied.
The parliamentary committee demanded that the Ministry of Education consider this gap in the legislation and submit proposals to solve it.
Source: in-cyprus.philenews.com
