26-08-16 Minister says all ready for school year, seeks cooperation with unions

After the successful issuance of university entry exam results in a timely manner – the first great victory of the ministry’s political leadership- we are undertaking, I hope with the same success, the battle to have schools fully staffed by September 12.

The entire administrative mechanism of the Education Ministry has been working with all its power for months, based on specific targets and timetables that are being implemented precisely. We are very optimistic that schools will open normally as I announced and that we shall win what many have called “a 30-year wager”, to have all teachers and books in place on day one.

In this effort we want all educators to support us, especially OLME (junior high and high school teachers), DOE (primary school teachers), and OILE (private school teachers) unions, with which the ministry has maintained a constant and constructive dialogue.

The Education Ministry and I personally are certain that all our teachers will give their all to defend public education, improve it and constantly upgrade it. They will fight for a democratic school of equality and quality. In the coming years, attacks on public education will escalate by extreme conservative and neo-liberal forces, who want to make education a commercial product, and transform students into client-consumers, with the pretext of “excellence”, which supposedly only private education and untrammeled competition can achieve.

All those who with various demands, some justified and some mere pretexts, want to impede the smooth start of the school year, will definitely be confronted with the reaction of the overwhelming majority of students, parents and the educational community.

I know there are many who await to attack the government in September. They were certain we would fail and they invested much political capital in disaster rhetoric, but their predictions were loudly denied.

They spoke – and first and foremost Mr. [Kyriakos] Mitsotakis [main opposition leader] – of the closure of thousands of schools and kindergartens, of the abolition of the all-day school and induction classes and of a huge cut in the number of substitute teachers, and much more that proved false and groundless.

They did not even hesitate to attack the credibility of nationwide university entry exams.

Now that all that has been disproved, the same circles resort to raising bureaucratic issues, most of which have been foreseen and resolved, and which are inflated into major clashes aiming to impede the normal opening of schools.

These moves have no chance of success. We ignore them and confront the essential problems. The big picture is important – that schools open without problems, with all textbooks and the necessary substitutes and tenured teachers in place.

This is not a narrow governmental aim. It concerns all of society which wants at long last to see us exiting memorandum oversight and returning to normalcy step-by-step. We set the rendez-vous at our schools for the blessing on 12 September. It will be an important day for Education, a joyous day of hope and pride for all.