Education Minister Athena Michaelidou on Tuesday called for dialogue before a planned classroom walkout on Wednesday called for by the national students’ coordinating committee (Psem).

The Psem protest is timed to coincide with a meeting of the House education committee. They cited unresolved issues including delayed air conditioning installations as well as heavy exam workloads as the reasons for the walkout.

The organisation said concerns it had previously raised have not been addressed by the education ministry.

Michaelidou said issues raised by Psem were ones the government already recognised as priorities and was working on.

She said the ministry had begun implementing “a comprehensive change” to the curriculum content, and pointed to €132 million worth of infrastructure projects that had been announced for school buildings.

On air conditioning, the minister said all schools in Cyprus would eventually be equipped, with a specific timeframe attached to installation and operation, though she did not repeat that timeframe.

Figures released separately by the education ministry show progress varies significantly by district, with Famagusta leading at 65 per cent of primary schools fully equipped, while Paphos and Nicosia trail at 16 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.

Psem has argued that comments made previously by President Nikos Christodoulides appeared to push the completion deadline back to the end of the government’s current term, “by 2028”.

On school uniforms, Michaelidou said the matter had “been settled for months,” with circulars issued to schools permitting relaxation of dress codes during periods of high temperature, subject to consultation with school management and parents’ associations and applied only as an exception.

Psem, however, said some schools continued to restrict the wearing of shorts despite those circulars being in place.