WHY GREECE IS BURNING

For us living here the fire ravaging Greece is no surprise.

Incompetent politicians and an education system where youth are neither educated, nor getting jobs have created so much anger and frustration among us all that this explosion had to come.

It’s just very sad that the murder of a child should lit the fire.

No, we don’t support vandalism, but it was with a certain satisfaction Christos and I watched on the news the Christmas tree on Syntagma getting up in flames. It would have been nice if the politicians had put at least as much effort inside the Parlament in changing the education system as in decorating the square outside their offices.

Because, nothing is being done.

Pupils, students and teachers have been protesting legally for a long time. Last year, thousands of students lost a term because of strikes and lock outs. Even the pupils at our local school started this term with a lock out – chaining off the school so the teachers wouldn’t get in, as a protest against both the physical conditions at school and the system itself.

NOT LEARNING WHAT THEY NEED

When my kids have that illness familiar to all parents – and that in our home is called “the illness of quarter past eight”, as that’s when it magically gets over, I just shrug my shoulders and let them stay home. Why? Because, very often it feel like they just waste their time at school.

One thing is old-fashioned, boring school books (if they are lucky enough to get books, as often they have to do with photo copies. Last year, many of the books didn’t arrive until Christmas, as the printers had been too busy to print election material for the political parties to have the time to print school books!).

Or if they even have teachers in all subjects. While other countries manage to settle this before school closes for summer, in Greece teaching jobs are distributed after the school starts in September, often leaving the pupils without teacher in one or several subjects until Christmas.

The education is totally out of touch with modern society. Too much ancient Greek, history and religion. No art (art lessons mean colouring photocopies of Disney cartoons). No music (they basically only learn to sing the national anthem for the national day celebration).

And days off constantly! Saints celebrations, holidays, strikes, meetings..Not even one year have my children had all lessons and a full school week from school starts after the three months summer holidays until Christmas.

Today all schools are closed because of the funeral of the 15 year old Alexis. Five minutes silence or a memorial lesson will not do. Not for that – the teachers had already announced that they are on strike.

THE BIG BUSINESS AND COST OF AFTERNOON SCHOOLING

I consider my children normally bright and to spend a normal time on homework, but it still seems unavoidable that they, like a majority of Greek children, will be able to make it through school without expensive private lessons.

The private education system is a big business in Greece. The majority of children come home from school, have dinner and are off to the frontistiro, the private school, for afternoon lessons. The older they get, the more lessons they need and take.

It’s quite normal for parents with one or two children at lykeio, high school, to spend 500-600 euros a month on private lessons for their children. That’s a month’s salary for someone who works for instance in a shop or in a factory!

And – if you spend almost your entire salary every month on your children’s education – wouldn’t you expect it to be superb? But it’s not! All they do are support lessons for the already crappy school curriculum – with one goal: To be able to get some kind of higher education.

Still, very few children get into university and it’s always a matter of studying what you were lucky enough to get into, not what you’d like. Parents who can afford it will send their children abroad to get a proper education.

EDUCATION IS NOT ADJUSTED TO JOB MARKET

But even most of the higher education is a total disaster and completely out of line with what society needs.

I know a young woman who studied computer science for four years and still have no idea about html or programming. Another young woman “educated” in graphic design without ever using a computer.

My former Greek teacher told me how she at her final exams in Greek philology at the university of Thessaloniki was given five pages with lists of novels she would need to read and be prepared to recite from by heart at the exams.

“Just like in kindergarten”, she ironically said.

AND WHO WILL GET A JOB?

So you have kids who have studied English, or physics or chemistry – those who are lucky manage to get a job as a teacher – with a salary of 1000 euros on month. No one can live on that.

The solution: Do private lessons in the afternoon so other young children will be able to study and get a job giving private lessons to other children so they can study...

Or get a job in a bar, or a restaurant or in construction instead – where you actually might make more money. The tens of thousands of euros your parents spent on your education was a total waste. Now it's your turn to start saving for your children's schooling. So they at least have a chance in get-a-good-life-lottery.

See why kids get so frustrated that they throw bombs?