THE COUNCIL of Ministers yesterday decided to implement the operation of a Municipal Armenian Secondary School, already situated next to the NAREK primary school in Nicosia.
The school has been operating for the last year and was only yesterday given its official recognition from the council as well as a financial boost from the government.

The decision was brought about in response to the closure of the Armenian Melkonian School last September. The school closed had closed its doors despite pleas by the House of Representatives to keep it open and pledges by the Ministry of Education to support it financially.

According to the council’s decision, the new school would “be a public educational institute with a separating operating system” to that of other public secondary schools on the island. The school would be run by the Armenian Schools Committee and would be temporarily administrated by the Head of the NAREK primary school.

The council also decided that the school will operate with the same hours of other public secondary school but that Religious Education (R.E.) lessons should not be included in the regular school timetable. R.E. would only be included in afternoon lessons along with Armenian Language Studies and Armenian history.

The council yesterday asked Education Minister Pefkios Georgiades to oversee that the school’s construction went smoothly while Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was asked to accumulate savings – to be taken from the Melkonian School – and to use them to fund the operation of the new school.

Armenian Parliamentary Representative Vahakn Atamian yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that he was “absolutely thrilled” with the decision.

“It is a decision that we have been campaigning for the past year now and we’re obviously very happy to have had it officially implemented by the Council of Ministers. We owe them our thanks for the decision,” said Atamian – who was previously the Chairman of the Armenian Schools Committee.
The school has already been operating with first year pupils and will be now aiming to secure pupils for the first, second and third years, said Atamian.

“With regards to the pupils of the former Melkonian School, because they were already at secondary level it was obviously not going to be feasible to keep them at first year level last season so a lot of them moved on to other secondary schools.”

A controversial decision to close down the Melkonian School was taken by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) after almost 80 years operation because they claimed it was a losing funds.

The school eventually closed down but not after the Armenian parents and Melkonian worldwide alumni and supporters eventually gave up an 18-month battle in the courts to save the secondary school from being shut down.