Gov’t to school unions: No ‘shenanigans’

A tactic by unionists aimed at undermining an Education Ministry initiative to introduce performance evaluations at the country’s schools appears not to have met with the anticipated response. 

In fact, just 250 schools have adopted the proposal put forward by the Greek Primary School Teachers’ Federation (DOE), which drafted mock performance reports that institutions which are opposed to evaluations can submit to the relevant authorities. Those 250 represent just 3% of the country’s 14,000 or so schools. Meanwhile, more than 8,300 schools, or 60%, had submitted their assessment reports by Tuesday.

“The law for the evaluations does not allow for any shenanigans,” government spokesman Yiannis Oikonomou said on Tuesday, after the Education Ministry gave those 250 schools an extension until November 12 to comply.

Failure to submit a proper report to the Institute of Educational Policy carries a fine equal to a month’s pay, demotion or an eight-year freeze on any chance of advancement.

Oikonomou also urged union leaders to “rethink” and to “rally behind the effort to improve public education, of which evaluations are also a key component.”

Failure to do so, he warned, is a “violation of the current regulatory framework and will obviously not be tolerated.”

DOE’s decision to oppose the evaluation system passed with a slim majority at a meeting of the union’s executive committee last week.

The Institute of Educational Policy’s platform for the evaluation reports opened on Monday, with an original deadline until Wednesday.

The initiative seeks to assess schools’ overall performance, but also the performance of their administrations and educators. These initial reports deal with the 2020-21 academic year and focus on the success or failure of remote education during the lockdowns.