The demonstrators, who had been waiting for over two hours for a meeting with the minister, were demanding the reversal of department mergers that they argue threaten the quality of education across the country. A group of teachers attempted to enter the forecourt of the ministry to speak with Pierrakakis, but they were met with a violent police response, with officers using flash bangs and chemicals in a direct confrontation with the protesters.
Protest against school mergers
The mobilisation was sparked by the government’s plan to merge over 1,000 school departments across Greece, a move which teachers say will harm the educational process and increase classroom overcrowding. “We are here to denounce this unacceptable and anti-pedagogical plan,” said Spyros Marinis, president of the Teaching Federation of Greece (IOE), speaking to Athens News Agency (APE-MPE). “This is a decision made purely to save costs at the expense of education.”
Marinis expressed frustration that Education Minister Pierrakakis had refused to meet with the federations, accusing the minister of promoting a false narrative of educational “upgrades” while ignoring the real issues affecting schools. He called for immediate solutions to the growing problems within the education sector.
Nikiforos Konstantinou, a member of the Board of Directors of OLME (Federation of Secondary Education Officers), criticised the lack of planning behind the mergers. He pointed out that secondary education students who passed their exams were not taken into account, meaning many will now be forced to transfer to new schools just days before the start of the academic year. “These students will take exams in one school, and by the next day, they will have to attend another,” Konstantinou said.
Growing tensions and future actions
The protest outside the ministry marks the latest escalation in tensions between teachers and the government over education reforms. The educational federations have announced plans for further mobilisations in the coming weeks as they continue to demand the cancellation of the department mergers and an end to austerity-driven cuts in the education sector.
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