Friday marks the traditional blessing ceremony for schools around Greece, signaling the start of another school year. The 2015-2016 school bell with knell for 1,300,000 school students who will kick off the year with a teacher shortage. As if the 25,000 missing teachers were not enough, there is also the 23% VAT hike for private schools still up in the air!

The caretaker government’s education minister announced that there are 6,700 teacher vacancies that need to be filled once funding is found. Funding has been approved for 19,000 substitutes: 12,000 through the National Strategic Reference Framework, 7,000 from state funds, 3,000 from the state budget and 4,000 from the Public Investment Program.

The greatest problems are faced by islands of the East and South Aegean as well as Crete.