Book shortages, teachers shortages, pupils transport shortages. The austerity shows its presence in what it is called “the worst school year in the history of modern Greek state”. unless you have a child at primary or secondary school, you can hardly imagine the drag of the parents nowadays. Here is a report I got last night from KTG-reader Cheshire Cat, a parent from Thessaloniki reporting about the first day in school and the parents’ initiatives to overcome the problems. Self-Help seems to be the solution. Here is to mention that the new school-mergers have been forcing students to cover a distance of many kilometers per day therefore transport costs cannot be put on the parents.
Here is Cheshire Cat’s report:
At about 10.30 am, after the kids had left the opening Ceremony, all parents of the new in-take met with their teachers in the school hall to discuss the problem of no school buses for this year.
Last years’ private bus company had not been paid since Jan 1st and won’t provide any buses until paid. With the re-organisation of councils, the new council won’t take on payments until Jan 1st next year. Many Kids have to travel a radius of 15 km and beyond as the school is located on the eastern side of the city. Pubic transport is not easy and some come from outlying areas in the province. There is also some doubt about school meals. Kids stay until 3.45pm and live a long way from home.There was a determination by both teachers and parents to finds ways to get everyone to school such as driving rotas, pick up points, pressuring local councils etc Complicated logistics so it was agreed that a new site (or existing facebook page) should be set up for this. The existing school site is 10 years old and lets say that parents wanted it energised and I have agreed to help. I will quickly put a site (in drupal) for them this evening to coordinate things.
There is also no school books so the site would useful to provide ways and means to help every kid, parent and teacher to get around this problem. It would be also useful to deal with other issues that come up. Many parents work (time spend taking your kid to school conflicts with work obligations), live far away and struggle with petrol costs.Nothing formal beyond exchanging of ideas, email addresses and telephone numbers.
As parents were leaving, the word went around that a deal had been done to stating providing buses (and perhaps meals) from Wednesday onwards. A confirmation or not will be made tomorrow morning.
This morning I got an e-mail that the transportation problem has been apparently solved. Immense pressure seemed to have helped. Waiting for updates on how things will be going. Thanks a lot for the report, Cheshire Cat!
PS Teachers call Education Minister to resign. But, of course, nobody resigns in Greece. Put the blame on doorman…
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