Explosion in the high weigh heavily. Moreover, the right is still marked by what it did during the bloody civil war that wracked the between 1945 and 1949, when the British and their proteges tion, with Stalin's blessing.
The Greek Communist Party is split. The so-called Interior wing,
Eurocommunists, taken their distance from Moscow.
IN THE UPSURGE of student struggles that marked the end of the
But the Exterior wing remains hitched year in Western Europe, one of the more powerful was the fight to Moscow's policy, and it is by far waged by Greek high school students. The following article on this the larger of the two, although it does movement is translated from the January issue of Ergatike Pale/ not have the strength seriously to challenge PASOK on the electoral
Spartacos, the paper of the Greek section of the Fourth Internalevel. The pressure of the electoral operates in favor of
For example, PASOK has control of the national confederation labor (GSEE), which has no credible opposition to its left. This enabled
Papandreou to call snap legislative elections in 1985 and win an absolute
In October of the same year,
Papandreou announced his austerity plan - a 15 per cent devaluation of the currency, a freeze on wages and dismantling of the sliding scale of wages [cost-of-living allowances]. The workers' counter-attack then was massive and touched off a crisis in the trade-union movement.
The unions led by the two Communist Parties launched a series of strikes. On October 29, the GSEE
Council took an irreversible step. By a vote of 27 to 18, it decided to remove its president, G Rastopoulos, a supporter of Papandreou's policy, and called a general strike in Novem-
The PASOK reacted in its usual authoritarian way. The seven PASOK members who had voted with the
Communists were expelled. A split tional.
December 1986 was clearly a hot month for European education. The mobilizations of the French, Belgian and Spanish high school and university students surpassed the most optimistic
• The opposition was provoked by the tightening up of entrance requirements, cut backs in admissions and the strongly class character of this process of selection, which is based on economic criteria. The Greek schools also added their voice to swell the chorus of this European agitation.
The movement in Greece started after [education minister] Tritses' statements in the first week of December. The passing of Consolidation Law gave greater powers to a super-centralized anaemic Greek capitalism to intensify process by the sole exhausting teaching schedules.
While working people are being savagely taxed, appropriations for education are pittances by comparison with the sums spent on the
"bargain of the century." [This refers to a massive arms deal made by the government.] This increases the strain in making the reforms needed to enable the educational system to incorporate advances in science and technology and new production tech-
The demands for reproducing a specialized and differentiated workforce are conflicting more and more sharply with the elasticity of the elements in the educational system.
The first step towards narrower specialization was the separation of the technical entrance to [Instititues of Higher Technical Education]. Thus, instead of "wasting as candidates for the TEI, children of the economically disadvantaged classes will enter more rapidly into productive activity. That is directly in line with the interests of
The picture is filled out by changes in the curriculum to the detriment
"outdated subjects" (such as Euclidian geometry), which in prin-
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schools
The January general strike was the biggest movement so far against Papandreou's austerity (DR)
ciple are aimed at developing the critical thinking and culture of the students, and to the benefit of computer and economic subjects that are defined in a narrowly technocratic way.
Nonetheless, the levels of training and study are still too far from the social blueprints. Apparently, the social programs for reorganizing education have become a nightmare for many governments. The French, Spanish, Italian, and still more so the Greek ministers, scurrying to try to hide how much their educational systems lagging behind West Germany. Teaching materials have to be increased, a lot of books have to be rewritten, selection has to become stricter.
made it clear early on that it was an organic need of modern capitalism to drive teachers and students at exhausting workrates. Teachers and students have to surrender their humanity and concentrate on turning themselves quickly into fully programmed accessories of electronic calculators in the service of capitalist production.
The growing unemployment of graduates is a strong argument for selection and specialization in education. Drastically reducing admissions to the AEI [Institutions of Higher Learning] is becoming a primary goal of the Greek state. (The next step is probably abolishing the equality of diplomas). [This is in order to 12 restrict access to further education and create a hierarchy of schools.]
Thus, the dream of entering higher education will become still more unrealizable for those who cannot afford the costs of preparatory schools. Suplementary education (especially the preparatory schools) will grow, while competition among candidates will sharpen. Closing off access to education
The experience of the explosion of unemployed graduates in Italy at the end of the 1970s weighs very heavily. The occupations and clashes in Bologna, the jeering and beating up of the Italian forgotten. The are learning from each other's experiences. High school students are clearly easier victims [than university
So, the model of the Italian university is being decisively ruled out as a social danger. When the state cannot guarantee the future employtoday's university students, it is better to close off access to thirdlevel education. This is the clear choice of Greek capitalism.
Resistance by students and teachers to all these attacks and restrictions on access to education is determined by many factors. It has not developed in a linear or a deliberate way. This conflict is very complex and intricate. There is no class homogeneity, no unified consciousness, no organizational structures for coordinating the struggles in all the high schools.
The teachers have given priority to job-related questions. They staged a 24-hour strike on November 12, 1986, to press demands for higher levels of education funding, higher wages and democratization of the civil servants' code (ie., political rights). Along with these demands, they have condemned the inhuman, exhausting work schedules that the ministry is trying to impose, while at the same time refusing to hire unemployed young teachers.
The rather low-key reaction of the teachers to Tritses' educational policy took on a new force because of the unforeseen entry of the highschool students into the fray. The movement started in the polytechnic schools, whose students demanded abolition of the discriminatory measures against them and an equal chance with graduates of the other high schools to gain entrance into the TEI.
The main demands were for a chance to get into the TEI and the creation of a fourth year for specialization. The occupations of the polytechnic schools were followed by occupations of some general and technical high schools in Athens. On December 16, 1986, some 115 high schools held the biggest high school student rally and march since International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
the school buildings and crying short. by the OLME, but condemned Tritses.
International Viewpoint 9 February 1987 the fall of the dictatorship [in 1974]. tions, OLME and ELME did nothing, not even issuing a simple declaration of solidarity with the student occupations. There were many reasons for
The first is that the occupations of the polytechnic schools did not have support of any official The decision to occupy these schools in Athens was taken on December 9.
voted for, students voted against and 120 cast blank ballots. The "no" votes came from the KNE [the youth group of the Communist Party-Exterior] and the abstentions from MAKI [the student organization of the right-wing bourgeois party, the New Democracy].
This was a genuinely spontaneous choice by the overwhelming majority of the students that took everyone by surprise. The teachers remained silent, confused and passive.
were, however, weightier and graver causes for this attitude.
It is no accident that to this day there has never been any action by for liberalization of the schools and in defence of students against oppression, jail-like regimentation and the destruction of their personalities. Circulars and orders such as G2/2652, requiring all teachers to send a letter to the parents when students exceed 30 absences, not run into any opposition from the
The teachers are unable to comprehend the whole set of physical and social conditions that determine the psychology and the reactions of the students. This is not the result of any unwillingness on their part. Rather it is a result of the fact that their centralized hierarchy forces them to impose discipline by every available means and to try to force the to study things that are divorced from, and in conflict with, their experience and wants.
teachers probably try with good intentions to make learning attractive to the young. But these very quickly on the lamentable reality of the jaillike schools. More and more, the teachers acquire the attitudes of pitiful jailers, just trying to survive, and no longer looking at what they do not want to see.
On the other hand, at least those students involved in the occupations of general high schools (southern Smyrna-Kallithea) adopted the just demands of the OLME for higher funding and the appointment of new
Tritses' statements convinced nowretched condition of ages of teaching personnel, at the very time when thousands of unemployed graduates are piling up on the streets, is a merciless reality that the students experience every day and are very
Moreover, no one better than the students understands the mental and psychological pressures on the teachers and the exhausting nature of their work. The students' refusal to accept the imposed learning whose usefulness they cannot see is a genuine expression of human freedom. But it is a painful trial for those sitting in teachers' chairs. Student occupations transform
The occupations transformed the schools from an area of reproduction of bourgeois ideology and oppression of the students' personalities into an area of free expression and questioning of the educational system and of all the government circulars and orders from above. The schools suddenly became a center of attraction for the students. The students voluntarily stayed there every night.
mobilizations only a prologue. The teachers' wage demands are not going to find any speedy satisfaction. In the meantime, the continually rising prices and the fading of cost-of-living allowances will create a constantly more explosive
For the first time, the teachers' of PASK [the trade-union organization of the ruling PASOK which has a plurality in the leadership of the OLME, took a ministry. The statement of the PASK in Peiraius on October 12, 1986, is especially notable. It not only openly supported the national strike
Bosses want students to become "fullyprogrammed accessories of capitalism"
The student mobilizations caught a lot of bureaucrats by surprise. The student youth has a very complex psychology and behaviour. Much less of it is organized in the KNE, Regas Feraios [the student organization of the CP-Interior] groups than in the previous decade. Moreover, the MAKI has experienced a significant rise. The reasons for this alteration of the political picture are first of all social and not simply owing to the decay of PASOK and weak-kneed policy of the
The expression of the students' antagonism to society is taking on a more spasmodic, chance and often violent character. First of all the constantly worsening unemployment all around them feeds their anxiety about their futures. In the student world every day there is less and less comradeship. The constant unbearable bombardment of videos, a plethora of motorcycles, sounds of electronic music press down
Neither the KNE nor the PAMP [the PASOK high school organization] nor the MAKI will be able to understand the sudden explosions of the high school student youth. No parliamentary party is going to increase
There. The road ahead for all of them. However, there is going to be a marked rising trend of student occupations and actions. The results will certainly be determined by the degree to which it is possible to achieve coordination of the mobilizations and to link up with the teachers' demands.
The vision that must guide and encourage the fight for radical changes in education is one of a many-sided humanistic education in the service of human needs, and not a technocapitalist profit.
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