Education angst! Private school VAT hikes and cuts to state school programs

The planned 23% VAT hike to private educational institutions will reportedly be extended to include private schools sending rates exploding. A reportage in daily newspaper, Ethnos, states that parents who send their children to private schools will need to dig their hands deep into their pockets paying an additional 1,500 to 2,000 euros in tuition fees per annum.

This, added to the extra 23% for extra-curricular tutoring and language teaching, could burden ontop of the extra private fees of 300 private schools around Greece whose tuition fees begin at 4,500 euros for a neighborhood private school all the way to 12,000 euros for a place in the prestigious American College.

There are reports that schools with the full-day extended educational program around the country would cease to operate in the new 2015-2016 school year as a result of cutbacks. Daily Kathimerini newspaper reports that there are plans to shave back on the program creating problems to 340,000 students.

Full day schools start their programs at 8.10 a.m. and continue through to 2 p.m after the basic core subjects have been completed at 12.20 p.m. in 1st and 2nd grades and 1.15 p.m. for other classes.

Other cuts are expected to include cuts to the scrapping of arts and technology programs at schools that are required as part of the full-day program. Furthermore, the school year is expected to start in September with a teacher shortage of 24,000 to 26,000 teachers in primary eduation. Just 12,000 positions so far have been covered.

Education Minister Aristeidis Baltas told Parapolitika 90.1 radio on Sunday that there is no plan to cut the full-day school program. He said that efforts are being made to ensure that there were no shortages at the start of the school year.