A total of ten mono-communal trainings took place on Saturday with the participation of 250 teachers from all areas across the island and two bi-communal trainings by international experts took place with the participation of 50 Greek Cypriot and 50 Turkish Cypriot teachers.

The Co-Chairs of the Bi-communal Technical Committee on Education, Dr. Meltem Onurkan Samani and Dr. Michalinos Zembylas also took part in the bi-communal teacher trainings.

A press release by the Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Cyprus says that teacher trainings are part of ‘Imagine’ peace education programme, that takes place under the auspices of the Bi-Communal Technical Committee of Education and implemented by the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) and the Home for Cooperation (H4C) with the support of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.

The Bi-communal Technical Committee on Education, which was established after the agreement between the two leaders in December 2015, expands its efforts to implement confidence building measures in the two educational systems.

A new initiative to advance these efforts, training of teachers, was introduced this academic year. The overall aim of the teacher trainings is to help increase contact and cooperation between teachers of the two communities in Cyprus, based on a holistic understanding of developing their knowledge, skills and attitudes on education for a culture of peace and non-violence.

This is based on ‘Mandate 2’ of the Bi-Communal Technical Committee on Education, namely “Work on devising a mutually acceptable mechanism for the implementation of confidence building measures in schools of the two educational systems and promote contact and co-operation between students and educators from the two communities”.