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I am impressed with what I have seen. I want to thank the Cyprus Youth Organisation for this excellent Centre and we are certainly looking forward to planning how it will go to the other Provinces and especially to our countryside, because we have to give all our children the same opportunities.
As a State for a long time we have been directing our young people, our children towards specific professions, towards specific directions. I have nothing against lawyers, against accountants, nor does anyone think that this points anywhere in relation to recent developments.
But at the same time we as a State, as a Ministry of Education - and I am glad that the Youth Agency is leading the way in this effort - we need to bring our young people closer to technology, to develop skills, to develop critical thinking and it was something that, I have to say, as a State we downgraded, we undervalued on our own, for example, the technical schools.
In other countries, for example, in the Netherlands, in Germany, the best students go to technical schools. We have created ourselves as a society a perception that those students - especially in the past, I am glad that it is changing now - who go to technical schools are supposedly not good students, a completely wrong impression. We closed the ATI, it has nothing to do with the TEPAK, it's not a rebuke to the TEPAK, but I remember when I finished Practical my best classmates went to the ATI to study. An excellent technological institute. We didn't pay enough attention.
So, first of all, we have to bring our young people closer to technology, direct them towards new professions and I am glad that the Youth Agency is leading the way. I am waiting for a specific proposal for the whole of Cyprus and our countryside.
The second thing we need to look at, because there is also the economic dimension, is how do we help all these excellent ideas that I have seen. To go from the idea stage to the commercialisation of the product, so that it can be promoted to help the economy as well, to create jobs and so on.
Again, I congratulate the Youth Organization, but also the Municipality of Larnaca, which is doing an excellent job and I am sure, and following a recent meeting that we had, the Government's decision to transfer to Larnaca from TEPAK, especially Maritime, something that we owe to Larnaca.
(PM/IS)
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