P. Papapoliviou [academic]: The act of the Ministry of Education to withdraw the English book is incomprehensible

It is incomprehensible to withdraw a textbook, at a time when it is already in the educational process, says to Papa the Associate Professor of Contemporary Greek History at the Department of History and Archeology of the University of Cyprus, Petros Papapoliviou.

Asked about the withdrawal of an English textbook used in the B 'Lyceum, due to a report he included in Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Mr. Papapoliviou said that “I personally consider the move of the Ministry extremely inelegant and obviously this shows that the competent Services are not working well. ».

“It is incomprehensible to withdraw a textbook at a time when it is already in the educational process. The worst thing in the whole story is that we are essentially equated with the occupation regime, which has been practicing this practice for many years in relation to the books sent by the Republic of Cyprus, the Ministry of Education, to the children trapped in Rizokarpaso. “As we know – and we have almost accepted it, in the sense that there is not even news in the newspapers – every year whole pages are torn from history books, from religious books by the occupying authorities,” he added.

As he said, “doing exactly the same practice in the Republic of Cyprus is considered offensive and unacceptable and it is impressive that we saw that even the Turkish Foreign Ministry commented on this action.”

As for the content, Mr. Papapoliviou said that it is obviously a textbook in a foreign language and added that “there is a paragraph, it is a journalistic text, it could be for Kemal, it could be for any other politician”.

“I imagine the student of the 2nd Lyceum would be called to interpret the text. Now if those who withdrew it – and in the extremely inelegant way, to tear the original page – thought it should not be in the textbook, they should have done it a year ago, two years ago, when I imagine page by page “Every textbook goes through a whole process of specialists, teachers, maybe a practical teaching in special classes, etc.” he added.

Asked if the book and the specific report could remain and be a matter of critical thinking, Mr. Papapoliviou said that this could also be done, “but okay it is a language course of BY Lyceum, obviously a good teacher – and I am sure that there are many of them with Cypriot education – he could comment that it is an English book and that the authors of the book chose a historical figure, which for us Greeks may not be acceptable for the well-known historical reasons, but that does not mean that we can know the truth of others “.

That is, Mr. Papapoliviou asked, “with the same logic will we tear every page that we will not agree with the content?”.

“Just critical thinking, it would be good to practice it in every lesson, even in gymnastics if possible. But obviously the English teacher could handle the matter in the remote case where a student would react or ask him to comment on the passage. I imagine he has the pedagogical skills to do so. “In general, it was an inelegant gesture that the worst that led to us being accused of being the Republic of Cyprus, from a country that is obviously not famous for its educational freedom and other political freedoms,” he concluded.

President of organized parents of Secondary Education

The President of the Pancyprian Confederation of Federations of Parents' Associations of Public Secondary Schools, Charalambos Dionysiou, in his statements to KYPE on the issue of withdrawing the English book, said that, “we welcome what is considered best for the education of children”.

Concluding, Mr. Dionysiou said that from the moment the decision was made, no further comments are needed at this stage.

ΚΥΠΕ