The traditional blessing of schools (Agiasmos) ceremony that kicks off the academic year is set to take place on Friday. Schools around Greece however are bracing themselves for delays due to cleaning staff shortages and lagging teacherr transfers.

Greek Federation of Secondary Education State School Teachers (OLME) Chief Nikos Papahristos told Proto Thema that on the one hand there is a memorandum sent out by former education minister Aristidis Baltas that increases the class sizes by 10% at the eleventh hour, and on the other side there is talk of joining classes.

The caretaker government’s education minister Frosos Kiaou says: “We have secured a total of 12,000 credits from the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) and 2,000 from the state budget for primary and secondary education. Another 6,000 credits from the Public Investment Program (PIP) have been requested but not guaranteed. It is clear that based on the time schedule, no substitute will be recruited prior to the elections.”

The conservative New Democracy (ND) party’s shadow minister for education, Theodoros Fortsakis, complained that the former education minister left behind a trail of problems with “unthinkable choices” such as the transfer of hundreds of educators to administrative positions instead of the exercise of their teaching duties.

A protest rally has been organized by OLME and teachers union (DOE) at noon on Thursday, just a day ahead of the official blessing.