Hundreds of elementary school students in Florina have been siting in ice cold class rooms. They wear their coats, their woolen scarves and caps on and struggle to come through the school hours that have turned in to a torture. Reason: lack of funds means no heating oil.
So the sit on the wooden benches and freeze.
On a report by state broadcaster ERT, I heard this morning that temperature in the class rooms was at 7 to 8 degrees Celsius, while the outside temperature was below the freezing point.
On Wednesday, several parentrs’ organizations decided not to send their childrne to the igloo-schools.
The director of Primary Education of the Education Ministry in the area said he had understanding for the parents’ and students’ protest. He urged them to “show patience for a couple of days.” He assured them that funds will be available soon.
The problem did not occur yesterday. On January 23rd, the mayor warned in a local television channel that “schools were at risk to close due to lack of additional funds for heating oil.”
Dozens of locals commented with irony under the relevant posts and urged the mayor to open schools in July when the weather conditions were school-friendly. Others criticized the municipality for spending money for events but not for heating the schools.
KTG understands that the Ministry of Education makes gives the heating oil funds to municipalities that distribute them to schools.
Florina is a town and municipality in mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. The average low temperature in January is -4 C. the record low has been -29 C.
PS Are we serious???
