The Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Niki Kerameos, filed an urgent action before the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens again this year against the Teachers’ Federation of Greece (IOE) and the Federation of Secondary Education Officers (OLME), requesting that the renewed strike be recognized as illegal and abusive – abstinence from the diagnostic tests for the students of the 6th grade of primary schools and the 3rd grade of high schools in matters of broader, general knowledge of the cognitive subjects of the Modern Greek Language and Mathematics – “Greek PISA”.

It is recalled that with the no. 537/2022 decision of the Single Member Court of First Instance of Athens, a similar lawsuit by the Ministry of Education against the IOE and OLME, which related to the respective exams of the previous school year, was accepted in terms of all its requests and the corresponding strike mobilization was declared illegal and abusive.

As noted by the ministry, the issue that has been raised for two years concerns the implementation or unpassed Law by the Hellenic Parliament (L. 4823/2021), which the trade union leaders “arbitrarily try to abolish in practice, constantly denying the any attempt to improve the quality of education”.

As pointed out by the ministry, the “Greek PISA” aims to draw conclusions regarding the course of implementation of the Study Programs and the degree of achievement of the expected learning outcomes, with the aim of valid and reliable recording of the students’ knowledge, abilities and skills.

“After studying and evaluating these conclusions, the educational policy can be designed in a targeted way, improving the learning process as a whole”, the ministry emphasizes and adds that “the victims of this strike mobilization are at risk of being the students, which is why the Ministry appealed to the Court, so that our children can have access to a better education, which will take into account, in its design, measurable, objective elements”.

It is noted that the exams in question are scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, in 600 schools, which were selected as a representative sample from all schools in the country, by level of education.

According to the information from the Ministry of Education, the lawsuit will be heard today, Monday, due to the urgency and the scheduled conduct of the exams on Wednesday 10/5.