“The government pioneered again. Without even waiting for her suggestions National Committee which she herself formed on the issues of school violence and which is made up of university professors, announced its proposals”, the Education department of SYRIZA-PS states in a statement.

“With expulsions, penal code, platforms and communication measures, answers the K. Mitsotakis to the social and sensitive issue of school bullying, which is constantly intensifying. Unfortunately their “Excellence” and indifference blurs the real picture, throwing the ball into the ring. It favors the tightening of penalties as a solution with a punitive attitude, ignoring the real causes of the problem”, he notes, speaking of “more and longer penalties for students, responsibilities to parents and teachers, and a change, essentially, of the school regulations”.

“It continues the discrediting of the educational and teaching role of the school, it makes the teachers in the role of policemen and the parents apologetic and helpless. It turns a blind eye to the social, work and economic pressures that create suffocating conditions in families, while ignoring the strengthening of a modern school, safe, free and creative, staffed with professionals of all the necessary disciplines. Against any form of expression of violence, as well as the causes that create it, we respond with knowledge, using modern scientific methods and tools to support students, teachers and families”, he continues, emphasizing that “the promotion and implementation of an authoritarian education creates authoritarian people, with tendencies of aggression, imposition and submission, people who possess an authoritative behavior, because this is what they were taught to apply and use in their relations with society and with their fellow human beings”.

THE SYRIZA-PS presents his own proposals which are:

1. Immediate planning for the first week after the Easter holidays, where the problem of violence will be discussed in an organized manner in all schools. The recognition and discussion of the problem in an organized way in schools is one of the basic conditions for solving it. There is a lot of experience from the organization of the thematic weeks that SYRIZA had legislated.

2. Direct training of teachers with substantial trainings and not some bureaucratic type of updates. Teachers are the ones who face hundreds of such issues every day and we must trust them, but also help them to continue to perform their social function.

3. Recognition of the pivotal role of the Associations of Parents and Guardians of each school. The Directorates of Education and the Ministry must take all those initiatives to activate the Associations and provide multifaceted assistance to them.

“The problem of violence will not be solved with authoritarianism, but with dialogue with the school community and the utilization of all modern pedagogical thinking,” the announcement concludes.