From yesterday’s Prime Minister’s meeting Kyriakou Mitsotakis with the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis the interview of the Minister of Education began Kyriakou Pierrakakis on his television on Thursday morning.

In particular, the minister characterized the meeting above all as “institutional”, something that is imperative to take place, so it is a positive development. “Actually, we have very important disagreements with PASOK, especially in the field of the economy. We believe that proposals should be realistic on which we can discuss and disagree. We are not in the era of “no to everything”, we are in the era that you have to make some basic concessions on basic issues, like in Education”.

As he said, “we don’t expect the Opposition to agree on everything, this would also violate its role. But he can’t disagree with everything. It means something good that this government is doing to be re-elected in time”, to then underline:

“In some things people need to hear honesty. His logics of distributing money to everything or saying that everything is done were logics that led the country to practically go bankrupt and enter the memorandums. So we are absolutely willing to have a dialogue, I will tell you that for Education this is absolutely imperative. But we did not see it in the law on non-state universities”.

“The International Baccalaureate will begin to be implemented in at least 5 Model Schools”

Regarding the invitation of “Rubicon» by a school principal in Ilion on the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Mr. Pierrakakis informed that the manager in question has been removed since yesterday Wednesday, because he has not cooperated in the conduct of the Sworn Administrative Examination. “The EDE is in progress, but in order for it to be successful, it requires everyone to cooperate. The competent services of the ministry told us that he refused to do so and because this does not exist as an answer, especially in such matters, the director was removed, with the EDE continuing.”

Asked about the case with Parliament police officernoted that it is a case that has shocked all of us and him personally, having read and heard what is being revealed. “From the first moment we have mobilized to find out exactly what has happened inside the school unit, that is why an urgent EDE has been ordered there as well”, pointed out the minister, also referring to the report written by one of the children about his brother.

The conversation then turned to the recent announcements about the International Baccalaureate (IB)with the minister noting that it is currently only applied to private schools in the country, however the idea of ​​extending it to public schools has been a concept since the 90s and specifically in 1995 where it was legislated as a possibility.

“It is very important in the education system to be able to give children as many opportunities as possible. So this will start first in the Model Schools, in at least 5. Of the 6,000 schools worldwide that implement the IB in total, about half are public, at a rate of 45% specifically. In these schools, any 2nd and 3rd high school child who wants to, will be able to do either the National Program, that is, the Nationwide Exams we have today, or go directly to the IB, as is the case in private schools today. We are not reinventing the wheel here, the goal is to expand it to all Standard High Schools.”

“The University of California is coming for a joint master’s degree with a Greek university”

Mr. Pierrakakis also referred to the joint master’s degree program from foreign universities and Greek universities saying, in fact, “just yesterday I was informed that the University of California will submit a proposal for a master’s degree at a Greek university”, while he repeated that he is waiting for more than 50 such proposals.

“Many good collaborations have been established by Greek academics in our country and abroad. We utilized 62 million euros in principle from the Recovery Fund, but if we find that the country can become a regional education center, we will do everything for more funding” the Minister of Education pointed out on this issue.

“The unified philosophy is that Greece has no unnecessary imaginary walls in higher education” concluded Kyriakos Pierrakakis.

“The banning of cell phones in schools has gone very well”

In addition, regarding the implementation of the measure cell phone ban in schools, Mr. Pierrakakis stated that the specific measure has been embraced by all the professors, who had been asking for it since the previous year. “This year is the year of the school, we will launch many changes along the way”, as he said, while at the same time he emphasized that many incidents of bullying no longer occur within the school unit. “It is a free gift that it happens outside the school and not inside the school of course. This is why we are all working together, to see how each family will intervene, how the state structures will be able to intervene in this issue. Applications are being created, we are sending psychologists and social workers to schools.”

Finally, for them eternal students he clarified that by the end of the year we will have finished with this matter “without much discussion”.