The heads of Cyprus’s two leading public universities issued a joint statement today regarding ongoing efforts to amend legislation that would allow public universities to offer undergraduate programmes in foreign languages.
Tasos Christofides, rector of the University of Cyprus, and Panayiotis Zaphiris, rector of Cyprus University of Technology (TEPAK), addressed the repeated postponement of discussions in the parliamentary education committee whilst responding to criticism from MPs about their request.
The rectors emphasised the urgent need to pass the relevant legislation, stating that “events have overtaken us”.
They dismissed concerns about potential degradation of public education and competition with private universities.
In their statement, the rectors noted that the matter of allowing public universities to offer foreign-language undergraduate programmes continues to face delays, with discussions now potentially pushed to 2025 or later.
They addressed several criticisms, including claims that offering English-language programmes would undermine public schools or Greek-language courses, or create competition with private universities.
The rectors maintained that offering a limited number of foreign-language programmes in cutting-edge fields would neither diminish Greek-language offerings nor create competition with private institutions.
The Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth’s proposal was described as balanced and containing necessary safeguards.
The rectors warned that additional proposed procedures would only hinder programme delivery and ultimately render them ineffective.
They highlighted that European universities are rapidly moving towards offering joint English-language programmes through university alliances, in which both Cypriot institutions participate.
“We have been discussing the obvious for eight years in our country”, they noted.
The rectors called for lawmakers to support public universities’ development initiatives, which they said would not burden the state budget.
They pointed to other European public universities that have successfully internationalised through flexibility and adaptability.
The statement concluded with an appeal for swift legislative action without amendments that could harm public universities, expressing confidence in broader social support for their initiative.
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