On Monday, November 11, 2024, the Minister of Education, Sports, and Youth of the Republic of Cyprus, Dr. Athena Michaelidou, visited the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus. The Minister was accompanied by the Directors of the Departments of Primary, Secondary Technical and Higher Education, as well as by other Ministry officials. The purpose of the visit was for the delegation to be informed about the School Network Planning System (SNP), which was developed by KIOS CoE in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MESY) during the period 2022-2024.
The delegation was welcomed by the Rector of the University of Cyprus, Professor Tasos Christofides, and the Acting Director of KIOS, Prof. Christos Panayiotou. Other KIOS faculty members and researchers also joined the meeting.
During the meeting, Prof. Panayiotou presented an overview of the research and innovation activities undertaken at the Center, referred to the educational activities currently running at the Center, such as PhD scholarships, lectures, trainings, and internships and concluded with the current KIOS collaborations with public organizations and the industry through the KIOS Innovation Hub.
Next, Associate Professor Stelios Timotheou gave a presentation on the School Network Planning System, a GIS-based tool that enables the Ministry officers to visualize, through an interactive map, the locations and related school information for the current academic year. This information includes student flows from their home addresses to their schools and the current educational district coverage around each school. Prof. Timotheou mentioned that the platform provides MESY officers with the ability to automate the procedure for determining the educational districts each year using mathematical optimization techniques. In addition, the platform also assists MESY officers to predict the demand for new schools over a 5-year horizon based on historical data. This forward-looking approach ensures effective planning and resource allocation within the educational system, he concluded.
A technical presentation of the system followed by the KIOS Research Engineer II Andreas Georgiou, who showed the user-friendly interface and the tools of the system.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Athena Michaelidou, thanked the UCY Rector and the KIOS Acting Director for the invitation and the productive discussion on the SNP system, highlighting the fact that new technologies support our educational system. Therefore, she said, the collaboration with the KIOS Center of Excellence continues, aiming to provide solutions to our everyday problems.
The meeting concluded with an exchange of views on expanding the collaboration between the two parties in priority areas for the Ministry.
