For the last six weeks, Greece has been rocked by a de facto all-out indefinite strike by primary school teachers. Thousands of schools across Greece have effectively not reopened after the summer holidays.

The strike, involving thousands of teachers, revolves around the demand for pay rises and increased resources for education. By the third week of the strike, they were joined by secondary school teachers and a week later thousands of school students joined the strike and demonstrations occupying  a third of Greece’s 3,000 schools. As we go to press, university students are discussing joining the protests.

The leadership of the teachers’ union has called off the all-out action and decided to hold weekly 24-hour strikes instead. This flows from the exhaustion felt by the teachers after six weeks of all-out strike action. However, the potential now exists to forge a real united movement of all education workers and students to force concessions from the government.

Alongside the demands for pay increases, the movement is campaigning for the abolition of entrance exams for university places, a reduction in class sizes from 30 to 20 and an increase in government spending from 3% to the EU average of 5%. The teachers are also calling for the establishment of school councils to run the schools and therefore limit the control of headmasters.

Xekinima, Greek section of the CWI, has played an important role in mobilising students, arguing for democratic co-ordination committees to be established and for unity between teachers and students. They have taken up the the call for a co-ordinated all-out strike of all education workers, supported by a 24-hour general strike of all workers.

It is clear that the rightwing political establishment across Europe are implementing a new offensive against education, signified by the signing of the Bologna Treaty. The movement developing in Greece shows the road that all workers need to take in order to halt the bosses’ anti-working class agenda.