Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis arrived at the education ministry on Friday morning, choosing the specific ministry in a symbolic move. The visit was scheduled for the previous day, but canceled due to emergency coordination efforts to deal with major storm-related damages in northern Halkidiki prefecture.
Mitsotakis was greeted by new Minister Niki Kerameos outside the ministry at 9 a.m.
The incoming government, comprised mostly of center-right New Democracy (ND) deputies but also by nearly a dozen non-elected technocrats, has repeatedly promised deep reforms in the education sector. In the short-run, its priorities include the immediate scrapping of Greece’s unique “asylum” regime for tertiary institutes, which essentially render campuses as off-limits to law enforcement, re-instituting magnet schools where enrollment is based on grades and entrance exams, as well as creating enough spots in public pre-schools for all children in tandem with a voucher system for use in private daycare units.
One news item to emanate from the meeting is the fact that the new government will not change the nationwide university entrance exam system, at least for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Kerameos also holds the religious affairs portfolio, i.e. that Church-state relations, which in the country of 11 million point to the influential Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece,
