supporttheunderdog wrote:GreekIslandGirl wrote:Agree that these are very selective data.
Cyprus and Greece are probably lower than reality because they have a higher proportion of older people.
Plus, we know poverty and the British Colonial Destruction of Cyprus prevented good schooling until more recently.
Would you rather the island had been left under Ottoman /Turkish Rule?
The Colonial Authorities were in fact seeking encourage education up to age 14 same as in the UK at that time and had schemes in place to build schools. One of the problems they faced (According to Nearchos Nearchou in his essay on education in Pafos in the period 1931 to 1960) was rejection from the principally agrarian communities in extending education as families would lose the help of Children in running the farm.
It's irrelevant to this debate whether Cypriots were beaten and taxed by Turks longer ago or beaten and taxed by Brits more recently.
And nonsense too to suggest such an excuse for not providing education. You'll need to show me the contexts of you forming that opinion from Nearchou's thesis as you are prone to fantasy. The idea to hold back kids educationally for agrarian demands is a British idea.
Indeed, the idea of not educating peasants was long debated in British quarters as historically it led to the introduction of the Agricultural Children Act of I873 in the UK. So this was something the Brits were aware of and if they wanted excuses to justify their lack of spending in education in Cyprus (despite the huge resources they exploited), then the Colonialists were well versed to sow such ideas.
In Cyprus education supply was strictly limited and under complete control of the British Colonial authorities and not subject to any whims of peasants - unless of course such ideas would suit the British purse. It was for this reason the Colonialists were in constant conflict with the Greek Orthodox Church as the Brits tried to systematically eliminate Greek (bit like they tried with Welsh). Hence the Pancyprian revolt against British oppression in 1931 which forced the Colonialists to rethink their continued fascist rule.
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 12:55 am
