According to a press release of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, the Committee began its examination of the "Regulations on the Operation of Public Secondary Schools (Amendments) (No. 4) Regulations of 2021", the purpose of which is to enable the Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports to allow student elections or part thereof to be conducted by electronic voting, ensuring the protection and security of personal data, reliability, accessibility, verifiability and transparency thereof, in the event of natural disasters or pandemic or emergency situations and where students are unable to participate in the election process by physical presence.
The House Committee on Education decided to continue consideration of the above regulations at its next meeting.
In a statement after the Committee meeting, DPA MP Alekos Tryfonidis said that one of the first issues considered in the Education Committee today was electronic voting in student council elections during emergencies.
"As the Democratic Party - Cooperation we are strong and vertical. We have thousands of citizens applying for benefits, whose applications are criminally delayed mainly due to the non-existence of an electronic application system, at the same time that the civil service and the wider public sector are facing enormous difficulties in processing work due to the non-existence of a digitised system, and the state is coming to prioritise e-voting in student council elections," he added.
He noted that they strongly disagreed and that they demanded that the State Ministry of Innovation, which declared itself all set to conduct student council elections with electronic voting, give all its strength and energy to digitise all the benefits of both the Ministry of Labour and the State Ministry of Welfare, which the Cypriot people desperately need, and leave the secondary issues.
In addition, the House Education Committee also considered the The Cyprus State Scholarships Foundation (Establishment and Operation) (Amendment) Law of 2021, the purpose of which is to modernise the legislative framework and provides, among other things, for the possibility of the Board of Directors to override the recommendation of the Selection Committee, in the event that the number of scholarship applicants is equal to or less than the number of scholarships offered, to determine the qualifications that may be obtained by the award of a scholarship
Provides, also provides for the deletion of the requirement for reimbursement of the scholarship amounts paid in the event that a scholar discontinues his/her studies during the first year (note that the matter has been settled internally so that the scholarship is awarded at the end of the academic year, once it has been established that all criteria have been met) and the deletion of the provision providing for the retroactive application of the regulations concerning the procedure for the suspension, renewal, termination of scholarships and the transfer of scholarship holders from one educational institution to another) and the deletion of the provision providing for the retroactive application of the regulations concerning the procedure for the suspension, renewal, termination of scholarships and the transfer of scholarship holders from one educational institution to another.
The House Committee on Education decided to continue consideration of the bill at its next meeting.
In addition, the Committee began consideration of the "The Cyprus State Scholarships Foundation (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2021", which provide, inter alia, for the possibility of awarding scholarships to candidates who have satisfactorily completed any year of undergraduate studies and have enrolled in the following year, the deletion of the age criteria for applicants to claim scholarships and the removal of the restriction on claiming a scholarship in the case of part-time attendance.
The House Education Committee decided to continue consideration of the regulations at its next meeting.
In his remarks on the issue of the State Scholarship regulations, DPA-Cooperation MP Alekos Tryfonidis said that they stressed the enormous importance and the great work carried out by the State Scholarship Foundation, which, he said, "we must support but at the same time "we must also increase its budget".
The modernization of its legislation and regulations, Mr. Tryfonidis continued, based on the criteria of either assets or age discrimination should be removed, but in order to properly carry out its work and reach the layers of society that are really in need, it is necessary to increase its budget.
"We have asked the President of the Foundation to submit to us the current budget and the budget that the State Scholarship Foundation should have so that it can perform its role properly and effectively," he said.
Meanwhile, the Committee also discussed the "The University of Cyprus (Disciplinary Control of Academic and Other Teaching Staff) (Amendment) Regulations 2021", where it decided to forward the regulations to the plenary session of the House, dated, 14 April 2022, for approval.
The purpose of these regulations is to enable the University Disciplinary Committee to impose disciplinary sanctions on a member of academic or other teaching staff, to suspend a member of academic or other teaching staff if convicted by a criminal court for specified offences, if an investigation of disciplinary misconduct is ordered against him or her or by the opening of a police investigation for the purpose of criminal proceedings against him or her, and to impose a fine on a member of academic or other teaching staff if he or she fails to appear before it or refuses to answer a question.
According to the press release of the Parliamentary Education Committee, the regulations under consideration are intended to fill the gap identified in the legislative framework and documented in the report of the Audit Service for the year 2015.
It is noted that the above regulations were also discussed by the Committee during the previous Parliamentary Session, but it was not possible to complete their study.
Source: CNA
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