The coronavirus pandemic is officially over but its financial side effects are still there with nine private colleges in Cyprus suing jointly the state over restrictive measures imposed at the time.
Specifically, the colleges have gone to Nicosia District Court seeking damages for the government’s decision to cut off students from third countries for two semesters, Philenews reports.
In essence, the colleges are seeking damages they have suffered from the change in student admission criteria in 2020 and 2021.
The private colleges are also legally demanding the annulment of decisions taken by the Council of Ministers which, they claim, created conditions of unequal treatment between them and private universities.
The lawsuit by the private colleges notes that like every year they received in 2019 information from the Ministry of Interior about the criteria for enrolling new students from third countries. And on that basis, they had accepted a number of students for the summer term.
In mid-March 2020, the Department of Population and Immigration informed the colleges in writing that from that then onwards they would no longer accept applications for granting entry/visas to foreign students. This was based on the decision taken four days earlier by the Cabinet of Ministers “due to the coronavirus pandemic and/or the exceptional circumstances created”.
However, some students had already paid thousands of euros in tuition fees, according to the procedure for granting entry permits.
On May 7, 2020, the Council of Ministers adopted a new decision, which drastically varied the admission requirements for students from third countries who were set to study in private colleges.
Although these requirements were common for colleges and universities until then, the May 2020 decision differentiated them and more stringent criteria were introduced for college students. That is why they are complaining of discriminatory treatment.
