Minister defends introduction of foreign language courses

The Cyprus government’s plan to introduce foreign language undergraduate programmes at the country’s public universities is “based on scientific arguments”, Education Minister Athena Michaelidou said on Wednesday 30 October, writes Tom Cleaver for Cyprus Mail.

Speaking to the House education committee, she said she had not heard any “strong arguments” against the plan and added that the introduction of foreign language programmes is “a basic provision of our strategy to upgrade higher education in this country, and to internationalise it”.

“We cannot leave public universities behind by not allowing them to offer undergraduate programmes [in foreign languages],” she said, adding that the exact number of such programmes will be determined “very carefully, based on specific criteria”.
Full report on the Cyprus Mail site