School in the streets the ensuing panic, twice as many students registered for private courses.
Under the new rules, students who fail will no longer be able to repeat their final year. Definitively rejected by the education system, they face a future of unskilled jobs and unemployment.
Students, and many parents, reacted angrily, demanding the complete rejection of the reform. Inspired by the wave of student struggles in France, protests spread across the country.
Younger students joined in, with school occupations becoming the standard method of protest. By
Christmas over half the schools were affected, and neither side was willing to concede.
Talks (and roads) blocked
Education Minister Arsenis made matters worse with an arrogant approach. He refused to recognise the students' deep concerns for their own future. And by refusing to open any talks until the occupations ended, he created a blockage where concession would be seen as defeat.
In the face of this intransigence, the students escalated their protest. "If we are ignored when we occupy our schools," they argued, "then we will come out and occupy the streets." Demonstrations and road blockages became daily events.
By prolonging the dispute, and raising the temperature, Arsenis created perfect conditions for the gradual extension and deepening of the protest movement. Local and national coordination structures were established, with a mandate to establish a unified bargaining strategy by the end of the Christmas vacation. As in the French student protests in 1998, girls were more prominent than ever, reflecting the long-term gains of the feminist movement in terms of personal relationships among the young.
The government responded with provocation. In early January the media began to scream about damage supposedly caused by the occupations, with images of syringes and beer bottles, and overexcited 12 year olds on the fringes of the demonstrations. The aim was to frighten parents, and turn them against the demonstrators.
The right wing and the Communist party were accused of manipulating young minds. Alongside police violence, small groups of anti-strike parents began to appear, often more ready to strike than to talk.
The number of occupations began to decline in January, but there were spectacular demonstrations on 15 and 21 January, with tens of thousands of students in the streets. Students also perfected their road-blocking techniques, causing daily collapse in the country's already overcharged road system.
Fed up with the daily confrontations, even the police federation demanded that
High school students drifted back to school in February, after ten weeks of occupying schools and blocking roads. Andreas Sartzekis Greek teenagers' lives are dominated by preparations for the all-important high school graduation exams. High unemployment and the "modernisation" of the Greek economy has made young people desperate to enter university. Schools are underfunded and overcrowded, and many parents pay for extra lessons in the thousands of private cramming schools. No surprise that the suicide rate among high school students is rising.
Education reform was a central pillar of the centre-left government's "modernisation" programme. Prime Minister Kostas Simitis had promised to "adapt schools to the modern world," (i.e. the 4 International Viewpoint #309 March 1999 short-term wishes of employers).
This was bad enough, but what actually sparked the student and parent revolt in December were the government's attempts to introduce "pedagogical coherence." But government technocrats made the old-fashioned and inefficient system worse. In early 1998, Education Minister Yerasimos Arsenis introduced a new teacher recruitment system which left thousands of auxiliary teachers out of work. This provoked a hard, two month strike by the OLME teachers' union, including violent confrontations with the police. Against teachers and pupils
After the August summer break, parliament approved the introduction of continual assessment, and measures supposed to remove the need for private extra lessons. Instead of one big final exam at the end of two years, students now faced 22 tests spread over the same period! In
the government find a political solution to the crisis.
By early February, however, most students had ended their occupations, in the hope of saving at least something from this academic year. A few concessions from the government, accelerated this procedure, and the conflict now seems to have ended in a draw. The aftermath of the protests