Plans to ban non-Turkish speakers from north schools ‘unconstitutional’

Plans laid out by the north’s ‘education minister’ Nazim Cavusoglu to forbid children who do not speak Turkish from attending schools in the north are “unconstitutional”, Turkish Cypriot teachers’ trade union Ktos chairman Burak Mavis said on Tuesday.

Cavusoglu had said on Monday night that under his current plans, no non-Turkish Cypriot will be allowed to attend a public school in the north if they do not possess a certificate proving good knowledge of the Turkish language, “even if they are born in the TRNC and speak Turkish”.