“Six out of ten students do not understand what they read, and that is terrifying,” said House Education Committee Chair Chrysanthos Savvides at today’s meeting, where Cyprus’s results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) were examined on the committee’s own initiative. The discussion focused on the performance of the Cypriot education system and the need for policies to improve learning outcomes. Participants expressed strong concern, while MPs called for immediate changes.

According to the programme’s results, published on 8 September, 53% of students lack basic mathematics skills, while Cyprus ranks last in the assessment of the sciences. In addition, 62% of students are below the basic level in reading comprehension. Mr Savvides said that “the proportion of our students who have difficulty in Mathematics is 11 out of 20”, compared with seven out of 20 in Europe. In the sciences, he said, “52.11% are facing a problem, while in the European Union the rate is 26%.”

The committee chair said the results should prompt concern and decisions on the way forward, adding: “I was not surprised, because something similar applies to the Pancyprian Examinations.”

George Koutsidis, acting director of Secondary General Education, said PISA does not capture the full picture of a school. However, he added, the results raise the question of whether children are being given opportunities to acquire the necessary skills. A downward trend was also seen in other countries, he said, while clarifying that this does not lessen the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and schools. He described the assessment of performance as a “multifactor equation” and said the syllabus needs to be reduced to allow more time to understand new knowledge and strengthen reading comprehension, mathematics and science.

Artificial Intelligence

Koutsidis said subjects such as robotics, new technologies and Artificial Intelligence are being incorporated into the education system. He added that international practices are being examined and that an exchange of educational material with Greece is being pursued. A three-year plan is being developed for secondary education. It will begin in January 2027 and focus on reading comprehension, mathematics and science, drawing also on PISA material.

The plan will be piloted in the second year of lower secondary school during the current academic year. It will then be evaluated, the material will be extended to the third year of lower secondary school, and complex assignments will be introduced in the first year of upper secondary school. Mr Koutsidis said the Ministry had been particularly concerned about students’ familiarity with texts, adding that school staffing is directly linked to student performance. He also referred to the need to revise curricula and align the taught syllabus with the examination syllabus. The next PISA assessment will take place in 2029.

The Ministry also said that, for the first time, measures are being promoted to limit rote learning and strengthen financial literacy, citizenship education and digital skills. Eleana Gabriel, from the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, said €14 million of the Deputy Ministry’s investments had been allocated to the digital transformation of education.

Universities also concerned

University of Cyprus Professor of Comparative Education Lefteris Klerides described the results as an indication of the state of the education system, from which specific policies to improve it could be developed. He said that directly linking assessment results to education policy is a particularly difficult undertaking.

University of Nicosia representative Elena Papanastasiou said the discussion should not be confined to analysing the results and stressed the need for systematic evaluation of measures implemented in the education system. “If all these years we do not evaluate what works and what does not, we are flying blind,” she said. Frederick University representative Nikleia Eteokleous said meaningful improvements and cooperation with other organisations were needed, adding that universities could contribute to teachers’ professional development and the upgrading of their skills.

'A chore'

OELMEK Vice-President Kyriakos Matthaiou said teachers were unaware that their students took part in such surveys, and that both students and teachers viewed participation as a chore. “This is the educational reality of our participation in PISA,” he said. He called for educational material to be developed, following the example of Greece, so students could prepare appropriately, and said a suitable approach and teacher training were needed.

OLTEK President Panayiotis Lysandrou said that increasing teaching time does not necessarily improve learning outcomes, just as reducing the syllabus does not necessarily do so. POED said that “the teacher is the last wheel of the cart”, stressing that meaningful results require a comprehensive education policy from kindergarten to university.

The representative of the Confederation of Parents of Secondary Education said the PISA results were worrying but should not be the main criterion for any education reform. He referred to Finland and Sweden, where particular importance is attached to reading books, saying these practices offered food for thought.

Αbsence of a comprehensive plan

After the meeting, Savvides said: “The reality, because it has to be said, is that we are at the bottom,” adding that “on average, we have an almost twice as high failure rate as Europe”. He said the picture was a cause for concern and that the results should not come as a surprise, given that average scores in the Pancyprian Examinations are 7.64 in Mathematics and 11.39 in Modern Greek.

The committee chair said members had been told that children in primary education had been prepared for years. He also referred to OELMEK’s statement that teachers themselves did not know the content of the PISA assessment for lower-secondary students. MPs, he added, asked how the Ministry interpreted the high proportion of students below the pass mark, how participating students were selected and how the results were used.

Savvides also highlighted the difference in examination methods. “The examination that takes place in our schools is the examination that took place in our time, by hand, with pencil or pen. Today the examinations are digital. So when a student is examined with paper and pen but takes part in a competition digitally, you understand that this difference in methodology creates problems for the result itself,” he said. He added that educational outcomes are affected by many factors, including school buildings, and that further analysis is needed.

Party reactions

DISY MP Nicoletta Constantinou said the PISA results, which were the first issue examined by the House Education Committee, offered an excellent opportunity to reconsider education choices. “Of course, we do not need the results to realise that our education system needs a holistic, long-term and coherent redesign. So the time has finally come to begin a meaningful national dialogue that will lead to a coherent education policy with continuity, regardless of who is in government, with measurable objectives, specific timelines and, of course, corresponding commitments in state budgets,” she said.

She added: “If once again we stop at identifying the problem, with all due respect, that is not education policy; it is simply managing impressions.” She cited the volume of the syllabus, classroom conditions, digital distractions and social inequalities among the causes of low student performance.

AKEL MP Christos Christofides said that for the past 15 years the Ministry of Education had invoked below-average results in international examinations to promote what he called irrelevant and reactionary changes and implement ideological fixations. “What was the result in the end? Fifteen years later, we have gone from below average to the bottom,” he said.

According to Christofides, what is missing is a comprehensive plan and an educational philosophy that responds to children’s contemporary needs. He said that in a rapidly changing era, critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, the use of technology, empathy, broader personal development and culture are becoming more important, while curricula and the education system continue to focus on memorisation and examination skills. He called on the Ministry to examine the practices of Estonia and Finland, which, he said, had significantly improved their education levels.

The MP criticised what he described as piecemeal changes in recent years, from the four-month examinations that were later abolished to links with teacher evaluation and the teacher appointment system. He said AKEL had submitted a comprehensive education proposal and that, despite years of discussion about curriculum changes, interventions remained limited.

ELAM MP Polys Anogyratis said Cyprus’s PISA results confirmed the need for meaningful changes. “It is not enough to identify low performance. We demand that the Ministry of Education produce a specific action plan, with a programme, implementation dates, clear timelines and measurable results,” he said, stressing that teachers should play a central role through meaningful cooperation with the Ministry and the Pedagogical Institute.

He called for new educational material to be made available through a dedicated digital platform and for activities related to PISA to be systematically incorporated into every school’s programme, so students understand the importance of the assessment and do not treat it as a chore. He added that a radical change in educational culture was needed, moving from sterile memorisation to critical thinking, logic, understanding and the application of knowledge.

Alma Movement President Odysseas Michaelides said such examinations should not be dismissed, since they provide a way to compare Cyprus’s education system with those of other countries. He said Estonia and the United Kingdom showed the way for changing the approach to education, adding that “education is the future of the country”. Regarding the results, he said: “We have worsened in Mathematics and remained stable in the other subjects, in second-to-last place.”

The committee will return to the issue at a later stage.

Source: CNA

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