President Nikos Christodoulides announced a new package of measures to support students. It is part of a wider plan to ease the impact of rising living costs.
The plan is called “Together in every endeavor!” It was announced shortly before the start of the new school year. The new measures are expected to benefit more than 45,000 students and cost the budget €9.5 million.
The plan aims to enable parents to buy school supplies, a tablet, a laptop for their children and pay for travel to school.
The package contains five measures:
– A subsidy of 100 euros for the purchase of school supplies for each student in the first grade of primary schools, gymnasiums, lyceums and technical schools. The subsidy will help 26,000 students, and the total subsidy amount will be 2.6 million euros.
– A subsidy of 200 euros for the purchase of a tablet for students in the third grade of primary school, a subsidy of 400 euros for the purchase of a laptop for students in the second grade of a gymnasium. The total expenditure under this part of the package will be 5 million euros, the money will be allocated for the needs of 17,000 students.
– A subsidy of 150 euros for families receiving child benefit if these families have at least three children attending classes in the preparatory group of a kindergarten (that is, they are over 4.5 years old), in a primary, secondary or technical school (as in public and private).
– A subsidy of 150 euros for families if these families have at least three children attending classes in the preparatory group of a kindergarten (that is, they are over 4.5 years old), in a primary, secondary or technical school, but are not entitled to the above subsidies. In this case, families can apply through the administration of the schools where their children study. This and the previous measure will cost the budget 900,000 euros, and about 5,900 families will receive the money.
– Discount on travel on public transport for students of secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions. As a result, the cost of an annual pass will be reduced from 200 to 30 euros, and a monthly pass from 10 to 5 euros (travel for primary school students on public transport is free). 20,000 students will benefit from this measure. Budget costs will amount to 1 million euros. The measure is also expected to contribute to traffic reduction and green transition.
The text was prepared based on materials from Cyprus Mail and Politis.
Let us remind you
The ban on the use of mobile phones in gymnasiums and lyceums was paused until September. Parliament was unable to reach a compromise before the start of the new school year. Read more about the project here.
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