Students of his first grade experienced moments of terror today 3rd General Lyceum of Thessalonikiwhen plasters fell from the ceiling of a school hall on the second floor, during class time. In her statement about the incident, Federation of Parents and Guardians of Central Macedonia Region he emphasizes that luckily no one was injured and that “it only took a few days after the opening of the schools to confirm our fears about the state of the classrooms”.

As Vasso Kochliaridou, a member of the Association of Parents and Guardians of the 3rd GEL of Thessaloniki, said speaking to thestival.gr, “the student who was sitting near the place where the plasters fell was very lucky. The plasters almost scraped past his head.” He even added that the fact that some students were absent today resulted in “the children sitting at the desks differently than usual, with the consequence that by chance the piece of plaster that came off did not land on a student”. According to her, the competent services had been informed since the end of August about the damage to the building, however, although checks were carried out by technical levels, the restoration work did not proceed.

“No student has been hit,” the Deputy Mayor of Education and Lifelong Learning of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Efi Theodorakis, confirmed to thestival.gr, adding that the room where the plasters came off will remain closed. As he described, the schools of the Municipality of Thessaloniki are old “and that is why the mayor is putting a lot of pressure on the government to approve resources so that the schools can be maintained”. “The Municipality of Thessaloniki has too many schools and it must be prioritized”, added Mrs. Theodoraki.

For his part, the Deputy Mayor of Technical Works, Environment and Sustainable Mobility of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Prodromos Nikiforidis, said that tomorrow morning an autopsy will be done in the school hall and then the restoration work will be done. “We were not notified that there was a problem at this particular school,” said Mr. Nikiforidis to thestival.gr. According to him, there are 220 schools in the Municipality of Thessaloniki with the condition of the buildings and facilities not being good. “Schools have been abandoned both as buildings and as facilities. A lot of effort is being made to secure funding to build new schools and rehabilitate existing ones,” he added.

The announcement of the Federation of Parents and Guardians of the Central Macedonia Region

In its announcement, the Federation of Parents and Guardians of the Central Macedonia Region requests “certificates of suitability for all school buildings IMMEDIATELY” as well as “construction of new, safe and modern school buildings, as well as upgrading of school infrastructure to meet the increased educational demands of the 21st century “, while accusing the government of underfunding Education. “We believe that this incident is also the result of the long-term abandonment by the administrations of the Municipalities and the chronic underfunding of Education”, he underlines.