Greek PM ends education debate with appeal for synthesis and dialogue

Education was an area where all sides were obliged to strive for the greatest possible agreement, despite having widely opposing views, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras noted on Wednesday, in closing remarks that ended an off-the-agenda debate on education in Parliament. Earlier, the prime minister had lashed out over corruption and intertwined interests, requesting an off-the-agenda debate on corruption in Parliament.

According to Tsipras, the arguments presented during the debate, on both education and economic issues, represented two different worlds: "On the one hand is the public sector and its defence and on the other hand is the world of the markets."

"Despite the fact that views are presented with a great distance between them...nonetheless, education issues demand what I would call exhaustive dialogue and efforts at synthesis. There are issues where this cannot be achieved but it is still worth the trouble," he added.

Criticising main opposition New Democracy's leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Tsipras said that ND's leader had presented his own positions clearly but distorted SYRIZA's own positions in many ways, while he also criticised ND for walking out of the dialogue before the Educational Affairs Committee and refusing to sign its conclusions as other opposition parties had done.

He was also critical of ND's threats to undo all measures taken by SYRIZA, noting that "the logic of demolishing everything," did not do justice to ND's traditions.

Public-sector evaluation

On the issue of public-sector evaluation, Tsipras noted that all sides understood the need for this, though they might disagree on how and why. He also pointed out that the debate on revising the Constitution would be an "excellent forum" to present each side's proposals concerning private university education, noting that ND's positions on this had been unclear.

The desire of Greek families to give their children a good education and the highly skilled people both within and outside Greece were possibly the country's "most important capital" in efforts for recovery, he noted. "It is our major competitive advantage: knowledge has innate value, it is an important thing for someone to be educated, regardless of whether or not they can be absorbed by the labour market. If we let the market decide everything, we would lose this important comparative advantage and the value of knowledge," Tsipras said.

The prime minister also noted that all sides, while disagreeing on many things, agreed on the need to change the curriculum for religious studies classes. This would be done through the necessary dialogue and the opinions of the Church will be heard and taken into account, he added.

"I will keep as positive the reference that this change is essential and add that fertile dialogue rather than confrontations at a critical time for the country are also essential. We need spiritual unity and we must pre-empt confrontations, not add fuel to the fire of future conflicts," he added.

The "dirty work" of media channel owners 

Tsipras had earlier strongly attacked ND and Mitsotakis for allegedly doing the "dirty work" of media channel owners and criticised his views on private education.

"Your problem, Mr. Mitsotakis, is not that you defend the view that there should be private schools and universities. Your problems is that you are biased in favour of private schools and universities against state education," he said.

Tsipras also attacked ND on evaluation, saying that the party didn't want evaluation but "an excuse for lay-offs." Tsipras announced that the government is preparing legislation on assessing public-sector staff.

In his first address to Parliament, Tsipras had outlined the government's vision for a free state school system that offers equal opportunities to everyone and will not magnify cultural differences, emphasizing the talents and skills of children. "We want a school that will give everyone the same opportunities to excel," he said. 

The prime minister had also attacked intertwined interests and the "old political system," as well as the stance of certain media toward the TV licence tender. He noted that the government was striving to exit the crisis with society upright, while putting an end to corruption and accumulated problems, and predicted a swift conclusion of the second review of the Greek programme.

He stated that Greece has for the first time an opportunity to overcome the crisis. The first programme review has been successfully concluded, he said, adding that the green light for the disbursement of the 2.8 billion euro loan sub-tranche will be given. Tsipras also said that Greece has had positive growth rates since the third quarter of 2016 and they will be even higher in 2017, while unemployment has been reduced.

He noted that the debt issue is for the first time discussed at a European and international level and by the end of the year we expect positive news from this front.

Finally, he said that 255 million euros from the TV licence tender have already been channeled for the support of people in need.

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