The Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), in co-operation with the Education Ministry and Cyprus’ universities, has announced their intention to widen the appeal of the islands higher education system.

At present the majority of courses at Cypriot universities are taught in Greek, requiring non-Greek speakers to spend two years learning the language in order to reach the standard required.

Manthos Mayrommatis, President of CCCI, confirmed that “for state universities, it is the non-provision of a recognised diploma course in English that’s the problem.”

Some of Cyprus’ universities have already begun to address that issue, with the University of Cyprus offering an MBA, MSc in Economic Analysis and a postgraduate course in Finance taught in English. The university also plans to begin introducing other English-speaking courses.

Elena Aygoustidou-Kyriakou, of the University of Cyprus, has said that their long-term goal is not to attract massive numbers of English-speaking students but to instead focus on the quality of students, with the hope that they will contribute to research later: “We wish to promote the University of Cyprus and show what sort of teaching it offers, the quality of its academic personnel, the research it does, the equipment it has.”

“As regards private Universities, the focus is securing a high quality provision of educational services, as only in such a way will they be able to attract foreign students,” said Mavrommatis.

Many Cypriot universities provisionally reserve up to 10% of their admissions places for Greek students, which sometimes go unfilled. Their hope is to attract students from other countries to help fill the spaces.