The continuous problem at my school.
The biggest problem my school has to endure yearly.
The issue: lack of teachers.
It isn't the first time we, at Petra's high school, have had to stand up for our rights. This has been going on for the past 10 years and we are all exhausted of being set aside and not taken notice of.
More specifically... due to the frail and unfair schooling system in Greece to both teachers and students, we always have a lack of teachers usually until November, but this year it has gone on for too long and it is January and we still do not have a Computer Educations teacher. Until the beginning of December, we did not have a RE teacher nor a language teacher for liberal lessons.
The root of this problem goes back to the beginning of the year as we had a computers teacher for the first month of school but unfortunately for personal reasons she transferred school and we were left without a teacher until now.
Because we were desperate for teachers as we should be since we have the right to an equal education as the rest of the students in Greece, we decided to stand up for ourselves. At the end of the year, we will all be graded and examed in the exact same way that will either "make or break" us.
We always kept asking the people in charge when they would send teachers and they kept responding in excuses saying that they were sending us teachers when if fact they didn't even recognize the problem.
The issue with our school is that it is far away from the capital of the island and we also do not have many points (the more points teachers collect the quicker they can become permanent in a school of their choice) so we are not on the top of the list of most teachers that choose Lesvos.
In fact, 2 teachers were sent to the island to come to Petra and both of them denied, probably because of our locations or points.Our goal is to raise the points in our school by becoming aν "inaccessible " school (as we are but have not been recognized as such.... yet!). This way our points go up from 9 to 12, which are a lot.
Consequently, this resulted in us having to "strike" meaning refusing to go into school and do lessons. This was the only way that we could get heard as quickly as possible as meanwhile we were getting absences which we can not go over 121 in the whole of the school year or we will double the year and we were already getting 7 a day with this strike. we should NOT be reprimanded and given absences for simply fighting for our rights for a proper education which is a reason we had to stop demonstrating or else we would still be doing it .
On the bright side, we got published in a few online newspapers and I spoke on a radio channel and got interviewed on local Television (TV Mitilini) which was a big help for us to reach our goal.
But we will not stop as this will continue again in the new school year (September 2019) this will then be my final year and I do not want to be demonstrating for my education AGAIN, I will need to be studying as these will be some of the most important exams I will take and I do not need the Greek Education system to once again stand in my way ,things need to change NOW and people need to listen!
All this helps us as our goal is to reach maximum recognition and raise awareness about our problems.
I'd like to thank everyone who has shown interest in our mobilization this past week and everyone for your concern and also lovely comments. Also a special thanks to the parent's committee, hi Mum, for being right by our side and guiding us through all of this.
I assure you that I won't give up fighting because everyone deserves an equal education and nobody should be set aside or deprived of their rights.
Thank you.
Tina xx
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