LEFT OUT AND BULLIED: FOREIGN CHILDREN STRUGGLE IN CYPRUS SCHOOLS
19/11/2006- Most children of immigrants and ethnic minority groups in Cyprus schools live in social exclusion from their Cypriot classmates. This was the main conclusion to emerge yesterday from a workshop on the integration of foreign children organised by migrant support group KISA. Support groups and unions engaged in a public dialogue with state representatives and university professors, with the key participation of immigrants whose children attend Cypriot schools. Not only are foreign children not integrated in the classroom, they often suffer from racism and bullying, while there are common assumptions that children of other ethnicities are under-qualified to attend the same schools as local children. As a result, these minority groups feel an added pressure to succeed, according to Cyprus College Professor and head of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence, Spyros Spyrou. ?There are popular misconceptions, such as that the dominant group does not need to change or learn,? said Spyrou, adding that society needs to change as much as immigrants do if there is to be true integration. Spyrou presented an eye-opening study, through which a number of disturbing findings emerged, such as the fact that foreign children doing well are not praised like local children are, but usually get the blame if something bad happens. ?These children are excluded from school groups and so are their parents ? unofficially, but they are. ?And some foreign parents don't even send their children to school because they know they are not welcome,? added Spyrou. The study was carried out on the pupils of 10 different elementary schools in Nicosia and it was centred on acquiring children?s views on foreigners. Eight out of 10 Cypriot children said they believed there were too many foreigners in Cyprus, while 39 per cent said all foreigners should go home and 46 per cent said some of them should return to their countries.
Asked what came to mind when they heard the word ?Pontian?, the most common answer was ?jokes?, while asked what they thought of when they heard the word ?Sri Lankan?, most thought of ?black? with ?domestic worker? coming a close second.
Serious misconceptions surfaced in the personal interviews that were carried out with the pupils. One child?s response to what he thought of Sri Lankan nationals was: ?They eat snakes and they are poor people.? Other responses included: ?Because they have nothing much to do, they have children? and ?Let?s just say I don't like blacks?. An 11-year-old boy replied: ?I had a Filipino in my house; she was relatively good, she obeyed me; she was good.? Representatives from the Education Ministry, the University of Cyprus and other non-governmental organisations attended and took an active part in the discussion. Spokesmen for the Education Ministry admitted that there was still a way to go until the perfect environment was achieved for children of minority groups. But the head of the Primary Education Department pointed out that the ministry has done a lot so far. He said, among others, that the ministry had added 1,355 school periods for the benefit of foreign pupils, had created education centres for adults, had organised seminars for the re-education of teachers and had consulted the Attorney-general on the rights of foreign children in education. The workshop was organised by KISA, in co-operation with Secondary School Teachers? union (OELMEK) and the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence.
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