Cyprus's Teacher-First AI Roadmap for Schools, Set Against a Widening PISA Gap

In October 2025, Cyprus's Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth announced an AI Roadmap for schools that prioritises AI literacy over tool adoption: understanding what AI is and its ethical implications, integrated across subjects rather than as a standalone course. Education Minister Athena Michaelidou said teacher training would roll out 'to a large extent from September 2026,' ahead of wider student-facing use, and stated plainly that 'there is not yet documented scientific research on [AI's] added value for learning.'
The roadmap builds on a cross-departmental Working Group on AI in Education and a separate national AI Taskforce approved by the Council of Ministers in January 2025, and sits alongside a differently scoped, already-running national system (CySKILLS-AI, launched March 2026) that uses AI to align curricula with labour-market data — the schools roadmap instead governs how AI is taught about and used inside the classroom.
A Cyprus Mail editorial (1 August 2026) placed the roadmap against the EU's 2025 Education and Training Monitor, which found under-15 underachievement in Cyprus rising sharply — maths/science underachievement up to 51–53% and reading underachievement up from 35% to over 60% between 2023 and 2025 (OECD/PISA-linked data placed Cyprus in the bottom quartile of 81 countries) — and questioned whether AI can be implemented well given these pre-existing systemic gaps, including unresolved concerns about teachers themselves using AI to shortcut grading.

Read the full analysis: https://en.politis.com.cy/social-lens/997798/cyprus-schools-to-teach-ai-literacy-and-financial-skills-minister-says