The gap between the ‘train’ and the ‘platform’
Let’s agree that for years private education was demonized and that vested interests held public education hostage to the fixations of unions and civil servants. The decades that passed consolidated a specific reality in primary and high schools.
In the last few years there has been a growing activity in private education. The percentage of students turning in this direction shows a noticeable increase. Demand, on the other hand, mobilizes supply and attracts investments. Kathimerini has raised the issue many times, including in a story on Friday titled “Investors eye private school market.” In its editorial, Kathimerini points out the need “to upgrade free education” before “another gap of inequality opens up between families who can (by scraping and saving) pay for better services and those who can’t afford the ever-increasing school fees.”
Giorgos Christopoulos, president of the Federation of Private Educators of Greece, mentioned another reason for concern: “Unfortunately, in recent years, policies for private education have been dictated by strong business lobbies and not by the need for better-quality education.”
The parameters to consider are inexhaustible and the debate in the public sphere is both crucial and pivotal for the future of Greece. It highlights social inequalities, complex problems, raises questions and multiplies responsibilities for those involved. Really, though, and who isn’t affected by this conversation? Parents, children, teachers, politicians and policies, competent and less competent officials, the whole of society and the state depend on the educational process.
If public schools are left – even more – to their own devices, if delinquency, bullying and gangs take over, if parents start punching each other in front yards (as happened recently), if teachers and professors decide to retreat because they cannot cope anymore, where will those who would like their children to be in a fundamentally safe environment turn?
Woe betide us if public education – a public good – starts being undermined. If the privilege enjoyed by the majority becomes the unavoidable choice of the marginalized, then no individual or even the state will be able to bridge the chaotic gap between the “train” of privileged passengers/citizens and the “platform” of the outnumbered, abandoned citizens.
