THE worldwide alumni of the Melkonian Educational Institute (MEI) have hired a group of California lawyers to challenge the closure of the Nicosia-based secondary school, they said yesterday.

Under their recently established umbrella body, the Melkonian Alumni and Friends, a non-profit US foundation, the alumni have hired legal counsel MacCarley & Rosen of Los Angeles to oppose the planned closure of the 78-year old Armenian school in June 2005.

This alumni is working in parallel with the local Melkonian Alumni Associations in Cyprus, Greece, the UK, Canada, the US, Armenia, Lebanon, Australia and elsewhere.

Similar legal actions are also expected to be filed in Cyprus, as well as other jurisdictions, a statement issued yesterday said.

The loss making MEI, which is sitting on 40 acres of prime real estate worth around £40 million in the capital’s commercial district, has been slated to close next year by the New York based Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), which administers 22 Armenian schools worldwide.

The AGBU said last November that the school was not for sale but then changed tack and announced the closure three months later.

Teachers at the Melkonian have said that last year the school’s population was reduced from 260 to 210 after the AGBU unilaterally decided to reduce scholarships to underprivileged children from the Armenian Diaspora.

By claiming that standards are not up so scratch, staff say the AGBU is trying to use the them as a scapegoat for their decision to close the school in order to sell the land and that they are using devious methods to reduce the student population of the school in order to turn it into a non-viable school and ultimately to close it.

“The MEI has educated and nurtured more than three generations of Armenian professionals and leaders and is a unique educational institution in the Armenian Diaspora,” the alumni statement said yesterday.

“It provides superior academic training with Western standards to a diverse group of Armenian boys and girls from different countries and social backgrounds.”