The transfer of primary school pupils to their schools will start from next September on a pilot basis, who will be picked up by bus from home to home, Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Yiannis Karousos, who was invited by the Parliamentary Committee on Education, to evaluate the timetables and curricula in primary, secondary general and secondary technical and vocational education, announced on Wednesday.
According to the minister in charge, students will be picked up from house to house, with an attendant who will coordinate this process, and will be transported by bus to the school, while he added that upon completion of classes, students will be transported back home in the same way.
Informing members of the House Education Committee, he said that the programme will be piloted for six months, noting that schools have been selected from urban, tourist, remote, peripheral and even mountainous areas in order to record any problems that arise during the piloting stage.
As Mr Karousosos stressed, the aim is for the programme to be fully implemented in all primary schools in Cyprus from September 2023, with the start of the new school year.
Asked about the cost of the programme and whether families will be burdened with any amount, the Transport Minister said in a statement on the sidelines of the session that the government's goal is not to burden families, noting that if there will be a burden it will be minimal, that is, in the same way as it is now done with the school timetables for high schools, which is 10 euros per month.
However, he added that during the pilot phase it is possible that there will be no cost and the transport will be free of charge.
He expressed the estimation that the programme will solve many problems in the daily life of parents and other citizens.
In September the study on rolling timetables
In connection with the shifting of working hours in education, as well as the issue of the traffic problem, the Minister informed the Education Committee that a study on rolling timetables would be prepared, which would be ready around the end of September.
He explained that the Ministry, within the framework of the study for the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan of Nicosia (SUMP), asked for a study to be carried out first in relation to the rolling hours and, in particular, if the timetables of the Public Service, education or some private organisations are changed or shifted, how these changes will affect traffic.
"The study will be ready around the end of September and when it is ready we will be able to put it before all the stakeholders to make the final decisions," he said. Karousos said his ministry believes that the traffic problem will be resolved if the hours are shifted, noting that a prerequisite for shifting the hours in education must be a change of hours in the Public Service.
He added that they will await the results of the study to have a documentation and then start the discussion in order to resolve the traffic problem.
He explained that the results will help significantly, so that the problem is not shifted from one hour to another.
In addition, Mr. Karousos said that an important contribution to improving the traffic situation is the installation of smart systems at traffic light points, where, as he said, now the management of traffic in Nicosia and Limassol will be done in this way and there will be significant savings on the route.
Source: CNA
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
