OLME for OECD

OLME- Greek Federation of Secondary Education State School Teachers
 Athens 25/9/2017

Dear Mr Macintyre,

The Executive Board of OLME met to discuss the invitationyouextended  about a meeting of OLME with the two OECD experts. Our final assessment is that such a meeting wouldn’t be constructive given the distorted picture of the greek education OECD hasdelineated  in a number ofOECD reports, which have been used for the reduction of public funding for education and had an adverse impact on the education provided including the abolition or merging of school units, the increace of teaching load, the abolition of support structures, the increace of class size.

Additionally, any such meeting of the E.B. of OLME with a group of OECD experts would send the wrong message to our colleagues-teachers who would interpret such a meeting to signify the cooperation of OLME with OECD.Your recent reports do not depict the poor conditions of the Greek public schools, neither the poor teacher salaries. We do not know, for instance, whether you are aware of the most recent accommodation problems greek teachers have been facing in finding accommodation on some Greek islands(Μykonos, Santorini) at the beginning of the school yearand  are unable to pay the huge amounts demanded for rent (500 euros and more).

 The views and positions of OLME are by no means secret and we anticipate that by making them known to you the distorted picture of the Greek education painted so far will change. To this effect, we would like to communicate OLME positions to you and provide written answers to any questions you may have regarding this matter.

Kind Regards,

                                                       For the E.B. of OLME