The Minister of Education Kyriakos Pierrakakis spoke about the changes in the new school year on the show “Today” on SKAI.

Regarding the prohibition of the appearance of cell phones in schools, Mr. Pierrakakis explained that “the measure is implemented together with a series of other measures, there is a new operating regulation in schools that will come into force at the start of the school year. The crucial part is the application. In practice, we associate the prohibition of the visible possession and use of mobile phones in schools, that is, the slogan is “the mobile phone in the bag”, as the student may have the mobile phone with him but inside the school we want it to be in the bag and not children use it.”

Subsequently, regarding the implementation of the measure, the Minister of Education added that “consistency is foreseen one-day abortion from the ministerial decision and this is the difference. In the past with circulars we have said that many things are prohibited. There must be specific consequences for our actions and the ministerial decision will give teachers tools to be able to manage the phenomenon. In addition to the simple possession of a mobile phone, there are also harsher cases, such as the videotaping of a child’s sensitive personal data, and there the ministerial decision will provide for a change in the school environment. This will be provided for by the consequences framework.”

Mr. Pierrakakis clarified that this is not a harsh punitive logic but a framework of consequences.

“With yesterday’s measures the technology it gets into schools more. We will have an interactive board in all schools from Thursday of elementary school and up, we will have a digital tutorial that for the 3rd high school starts from September 16. On the one hand, in the digital world there must be greater measure and in the physical world more time so that we can come out again and increase the game there as well” emphasized Mr. Pierrakakis.

Asked about the return of her measure five-day abortionMr. Pierrakakis emphasized that “these are teachers’ tools. When we talk about implementation in the context of consequences, we are talking about a new operating regulation in schools that provides, for example, when a child does damage, to be paid by his family and it starts to be implemented from September, it provides for a reset of the framework of justified – unjustified absences, the 50 should be unexcused as in the past”.

Responding to the criticism that characterizes the measures as “punitive”, the Minister of Education emphasized that “many countries apply the regulation and the world and teachers are asking for tools, but there is not only one dimension. There is the dimension of active citizen actions where children must be trained to be able to contribute to their community, there is the introduction of technology in these 11 meters. So, you’ll see that they’re weighted and weighed, and we’ll be on top of the app.”

“Wherever there are reactions, we will insist on the implementation of the measures. We have made the new framework in collaboration with experts, education policy experts, psychologists, social workers and they have come up with these measures. The ministerial decision will be signed by Deputy Minister Makris before the start of the school year, these are the first measures and from then on we are open to suggestions and ideas.” Mr. Pierrakakis then added.

As far as they are concerned recruitment of teachersMr. Pierrakakis noted that “we have made 10,000 appointments this year. Greece has approximately 200,000 permanent and substitute teachers. Our peculiarity is that we have a huge percentage of substitutes and therefore it must be reduced and that is why we want more permanent appointments in education. In the coming years we will see this trend to decrease the percentage of substitutes and the specialties will change from year to year. This year we had many appointments in special education and secondary education. Next year we want more kindergarten teachers, more teachers.”

Regarding the platform for the bullyingthe Minister of Education noted that “we have recorded some first incidents and I believe that there is a very significant effect already from the operation of the platform. We had over 300 incidents recorded, a first number of incidents we managed overall in our schools. This year we will also have a group of experts who will coordinate and assist all the committees nationwide and we will communicate this work even more to break the chain of silence.”