Cyprus

Introduction

 * Cyprusan island in the extreme eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of Turkey, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) west of the Syrian coast.
 * Population is 818,200 (End of 2003 including estimates for Turkish Cypriots).
 * The nationality is called Cypriot.

Overview of Education in Cyprus
After several private higher education colleges had been operating on the island for decades, Cyprus established the first public university, the University of Cyprus, in 1992. With the additional expansion of operations by the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, government spending on research and development increased substantially and efforts began to promote Cyprus as a center for services, business, and education in the region. The positions which are allocated to Cypriots for studies in higher education institutions are distributed among the candidates based on the results of the competitive Entrance Examinations which are held every year by the Department of Higher and Tertiary Education. Part of the efforts to improve higher education provided by both public and private institutions, was the recent law which allows the establishment and operation of private universities in Cyprus. As a result, there are currently three public universities (Cyprus University of Technology, Open University of Cyprus, University of Cyprus) and three private universities (University of Nicosia, Frederick University, European University Cyprus).


 * Pocket statistics: Tertiary Education in Cyprus