Don’t try to replace those who were driven out

(From the announcement) The most recent decision to remove a school principal was issued immediately after Christmas, leaving the school in the middle of the academic year without a principal, causing enormous disruption to the school, its pupils, and parents, and creating serious problems in the school’s operation.

These removals took place after months of threats, with constant phone calls, written documents containing ultimatums, and other actions by the Corfu Director of Secondary Education, who—at times with the “stick” and at others with the “carrot”—sought to coerce colleagues into giving in and entering a process that runs counter to the decisions of their collective bodies.

By formal administrative acts of the Corfu Director of Secondary Education, on 3 February 2025, two school principals and two deputy principals were arbitrarily, unlawfully, and unconstitutionally removed from their posts. These were the Principal of the Peroulades Junior High School, the Principal of the Kato Korakiana Vocational High School (EPAL), and the Deputy Principals of Corfu 4th High School and the Kassiopi Junior High School with Upper Secondary Classes.

The “crime” of the fellow principals was that, because they participated in the sector’s strike/abstention, they did not proceed with the evaluation of teachers. The deputy principals fall under the same “offence”; although they do not carry out evaluations, they were nonetheless caught up in the vindictive fury of the Director of Secondary Education and were removed from their posts as education officials.

The objective is clear: to obstruct trade union activity and, through coercion, to force educators into accepting the reactionary evaluation and categorisation of schools and teachers, which leads to the privatisation and commercialisation of free public education.

ELME calls on teachers who are on the list of candidate principals not to accept appointment to the positions of their removed colleagues.

GIORGOS KATSAITIS