It is obvious that our times are characterized by a fierce large scale assault of the system towards the achieved rights of the people and the youth, in order to restore what imperialism and the bourgeois call “natural order”.
Despite the fact that the above statement is accepted on the level of the toilers' rights -because of the existing resistance in various domains of work- there is the impression that in the domain of education the developments are slower and the assault is milder. The difficulties of the various movements in the domain of education (high school students, university students and teachers) to set up islands of resistance have created the impression that the “war” that the bourgeois conducts in the domain of education is of "low tension". Is it?
In our opinion, it is not. The ongoing changes in all educational levels are of really great importance and their target is the fundamental change of the educational environment in reference to studies and work of students and teachers.

A brief reference

A brief reference to the measures promoted in all educational levels:

In Primary Schools: School books change and more subjects are pushed to lower school classes, a "flexible zone" is established and the lessons are organized across many subjects. These measures constitute the tools that create a suffocating framework for students and teachers, accelerate the application of new working regulations, increase the teachers working on hourly wages (using the needs of all-day schools as an alibi) and promote the valuation of schools and teachers.
In High Schools: New legislation on technical education is promoted, which creates new types of technical high schools, introduces a big reduction in university admissions (because of the pass mark of 10 and through the redistribution of the university admissions among “good” and “bad” university faculties) and the evaluation of schools and teachers.
At the same time, in these two levels, the government conducts a real war of ideological intervention and propaganda through initiatives concerning memory days for the "victims of terrorism", promotion of and publicity on private insurance, enterprise simulations in technical schools, a hysterical propaganda in favour of valuation in tutoring centres, and other initiatives of no less importance.
In Universities, things are clearer: the laws on valuation and lifelong education that will be complemented by new legislation constitute a real reactionary change.

Before we go on expressing our views on the objectives of the system and its governments, we would like to present a brief flashback into recent past:
The basic characteristic of the policies of the bourgeois governments, for the last twenty years, has been the discouragement of the young peoples to pursuit their admission to universities. Restrictions in transfers between universities, the intensification in the 2nd and 3rd grade, the need for private preparation schools, the setback of the rights in accommodation and feeding and other measures “pushed” more and more young people of lower social background out of universities. Then we had the assault by minister of education Arsenis (in 1998), which was the most violent attempt of the bourgeois class to re-adjust the education system by solving two basic issues: a) to respond to the demand of high school students for university studies by throwing half of them to technical schools and therefore out of universities and b) to crash the working rights of the teachers by abolishing anniversary.

Successes and failures of the system during the period 1998-2006

In the following years, the education policy of the system accomplished several successes and suffered a few failures:
In our opinion, the basic successes of the system during the period 1998-2006, beside the abolition of anniversary, can be summarized in two levels:

In the level of intensification of class-based education: The measures promoted by Arsenis may have been inhibited up to a point, under the pressure of the students’ movement and the unwillingness of the teachers to fail their students, nevertheless, the damage had already occurred. Thousands of students were thrown out of the education system. In addition, these unfavourable developments were imposed by extra-educational factors, such as the deepened poverty and unemployment that discouraged the children of poor families who have accepted or rather subdued to the idea that university studies are not for them.
In the level of breaking up and deforming the students’ and the teachers’ movements: The teachers, under the burden of the ongoing assault in our society, squeezed by the years of austerity policies and disappointed by the chronic inertia of the trade union movement, watch the everyday initiatives of their opponents without detecting any serious resistance. This fact has consolidated a climate of passivity in schools and an abstention of the majority of teachers from syndicalism and union activities. The unreliability of syndicalism together with the orchestrated attempts of the present and also the previous government to hit syndicalism by replacing it with various governmental co-administrative bodies has driven a part of the teachers to seek the solution to their problems not in their unions themselves, but in the elected representatives. We could say that the shortcomings of the trade union movement have been partially covered by a whole network of petty facilitations and petty blackmails.

Nevertheless, despite the unfavourable climate, there are elements that make the system uncomfortable:

The teachers, despite their divisions, seem unwilling to undertake the "obligations" that the system has assigned to them, especially towards their students.
The teachers are still undisciplined. They still feel free to express their views in their classes and they don’t accept any interference.
Despite the tension of the assault, despite the problems and the unreliability of syndicalism, there is still a climate of union democracy in schools.
The delay in applying the valuation and the new working regulations has created a new inertia and if it goes on, the achieved right of non-suffocating working conditions in schools will be consolidated among the younger generations of teachers. In other words, the institutional framework may constitute a serious achievement for the system; however, the postponement of applying it recycles its own difficulties.
Teachers still constitute a “bad example” of working relations that comes from the past (or maybe from the future).

The basis of the crisis

The Greek economy (which has been dependent since the formation of the Greek state) is determined and developed, that is de-structured according to the EU directives and quota. It is not able, by its own nature, to organise and plan on the demands for workforce in each sector. That is the basis of the aggravation of the crisis and the inconsistencies of the education system in our country and therefore, whatever changes are promoted aim at the intensification of class barriers, at the assault on the education and employment rights. A good example, that shows this inconsistency, is the fact that the part of secondary education mostly connected to production, that is the technical schools, orientates its students towards the military and police schools!

The aims of the present changes

The present phase of the system, its crisis as well as the above mentioned successes on the one hand and the inflexibility on the other, show the way towards the changes-reforms promoted, which aim at the intensification of class-based society in relation to the following three factors:

Control on the teachers: The ideological role of the bourgeois education has to be accomplished without any inflexibility. In order to achieve that, a tight control-manipulation of the teachers through valuation and further assault on union rights is important. Young people must be fully familiarized with the "modern" spirit of "employable" of working without insurance, of lifelong education and should feel responsible for their unemployment. Together with reality, as it is formed in the domain of working relations, teachers are expected to help towards this objective.

The assault on the rights of the youth in studies: The class-based selection must be intensified. The big numbers of admissions in universities cannot hide the fact that “good” faculties that offer good employment perspectives concern only the higher social classes, whereas young people who come from lower classes, even when they continue their studies, are admitted in faculties without any perspective and very often don’t attend or even drop out.

This year’s redistribution of admissions between the first-rate and the second-rate faculties, as well as the abolition of transfers to the central universities and the demand of a pass mark in order to be admitted to universities constitute significant changes towards this objective. Those changes in the 3rd grade education will put a finishing touch to this reactionary direction.
At the same time the recently announced new technical schools constitute a monstrous, fierce class-based type of school-parking zone for students who will be today’s or tomorrow’s "employables" without any education or employment rights.
On the basis of the above mentioned reasoning, the financial cost of education will be passed to the peoples and the youth and there will be a further assault on free education.

The assault on the employment rights of the youth: There must be a full dissociation between any certificate, diploma or degree and the notion of employment rights. Young people will collect certificates of no value and the state will have no obligation to associate them with employment. In an environment of de-construction of the country's production, young people must be “flexible” and not at all "demanding". The changes in high schools and technical schools as well as in universities point towards this direction.

Comments on two issues

A) About privatisation:
It is claimed that privatisation is the basic aspect of the system's education policies. Respectively, there is an objection to the "market-orientated" or "business-orientated" school. If this implies the submission of education to the capital's assault ("employable", without any rights) we don't have any problem, besides the confusion that can be caused by an inaccurate perception of reality. Let’s be clear: the bourgeois education isn’t going to stop having its ideological role and cannot function on the basis of "reciprocation", because that would be a market-orientated school. This basic (ideological) function will go on with the bourgeois state as its vehicle. Besides, this business-orientated school, where is it going to operate its business? In Greece of social devastation and de-construction?
We mention this because there is the danger of waiting for the big battle against privatization that will never come, while the bourgeois will have fully re-adjusted its own public education to its own today’s aggressive demands.

B) About the educational model:
We have read in a ESF text on education that “another kind of education is possible in Europe”. No! Education has been and will be submitted to the ruling class (whichever this is) and, consequently, as long as the bourgeois is the ruling class, the education will be bourgeois. The education system may show more or less tolerance to public rights, according to the special objectives and the possibilities of the bourgeois class in general and against the enemy (the people). However, its role is not negotiable for the ruling class. If we all agree on this basic ancient truth (Aristotle made it clear 2300 years ago) why should we be anxious to propose an “alternative” type of school? We understand the pressure exercised by the system that has been using the cliché “you don’t have any proposals”. We cannot understand, though, how can this pressure be overpassed with “acrobatic” manoeuvres of dreaming of “an other kind of school” that will (?) be justified in this society of exploitation.
Let’s speak the movement's language: Was the great movement against the abolition of the anniversary, or the students’ movement of '98-99, or the French March, was any of these movements triggered by the promotion of a new kind of anniversary, or new types of technical schools, or new laws, or by the need to resist to defend their rights?

In conlusion

We think that we are at a point where the system is not joking. They want it all and they want it now. In this view, reformism (in its precise meaning) essentially does not have a material basis. It cannot achieve anything. On the other hand, we neither think that the movement is able to fight back, much more to attack.
We believe that, in this period, the basic duty of the left forces is to support the movement against proposals to the system and co-administration and to try to develop islands of resistance to defend the employment rights and the freedoms of the toilers, their children and the teachers.
Because it is obvious that the system puts pressure on all sides to fully align, the responsibility for creating islands (or even fronts) of resistance lies (if only it didn’t) on the forces that are “beyond the line”. And these forces should urgently strengthen public dialogue and confrontation on various issues where there is disagreement and at the same time strengthen the common actions on issues where there is agreement.
We believe that this attitude could become a way out for the movement, not because it can sum up different forces -one way or another the sum is not sufficient to confront the attack- but because it can facilitate independent militants, now in inertia, simply watching the procedures of the movement, to get involved and set the bases for the creation of the movement.

In the "flexible zone" the school itself, not the state, decides on specific subjects or even projects to be covered
A system according to which teachers were hired in public schools sequentially, only according to the years after they had their university diplomas
A term introduced by prime minister Simitis a few years ago to indicate the new spirit in the working conditions