The government is compelled to integrate the children of refugees into the education process if it wants to be true to its left ideology, Deputy Education Minister Sia Anagnostopoulou told left.gr in an interview. ‘The response of out left government to the closed borders is the equal treatment of refugee and migrant children, like all the world’s and Europe’s children’, she stressed. Outlining the Ministry’s goals for the new school season, Anagnostopoulou promised all teachers and educational material would be in ready once the bell rang in September. The Deputy Minister also announced that permanent teachers would be hired in 2017. On the  criticism levelled against the government by opposition parties regarding article 28 on private educational institutions, the Deputy Minister claimed it put a halt on unbridled neoliberal attitudes that wanted education to be turned into a commodity traded in the free market. ‘Education is a public good. Therefore, teachers, either in the public or private sector, provide a service and had to be protected via an common institutional framework by the state and not be held hostages in the hands of any school owner’, she said.