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GREEK LAWMAKERS PREPARED to vote late on Wednesday on a controversial new austerity package involving a huge shake-up of the civil service with thousands of jobs on the line.
The vote, to be held around midnight, is going ahead despite mass protests against the reforms imposed in return for fresh bailout funds.
Under the proposed reforms, thousands of civil servants including teachers and municipal police will have eight months to find new posts elsewhere or accept those offered to them. Otherwise, they would lose their jobs.
About 4,200 people are due to be redeployed already by the end of July.
Overall, Greece must redeploy 25,000 civil servants and fire another 4,000 by the end of the year.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras defended the unpopular measure, promising “better days” for Greeks as he announced a 10 percent drop in restaurant sales tax to boost the tourist season.
“Better days will come for our people,” Samaras said in a televised address hours before the vote.
“We will not let up. We will climb uphill and reach the end, which is not far.”
Samaras has been under heavy pressure this past month to hold his government together after losing one of his coalition allies in June in the wake of an earlier round of job cuts affecting state broadcaster ERT.
On Wednesday, a private station aired footage of the PM fumbling his statement during one of the readings and muttering “fuck me, what a wanker” in a misstep caught on camera.
Parliament must approve the bill for Greece to receive its next instalment of 6.8 billion euros in rescue funds cleared by eurozone finance ministers.
The government has a five-seat majority, enough to pass the legislation.
The size, cost, efficiency and contractual conditions of the public sector workforce in Greece have been in the sights of the IMF and EU ever since they moved in with the bailout programme and associated conditions for reforms.
The bill also covers a partial overhaul of the tax system, including the introduction of new criteria for taxable income and the adjustment of tax thresholds.
About 4,000 civil servants, according to a police source, gathered on Wednesday in Athens’ central Syntagma square near the parliament to protest against the vote.
Protests
The two main unions have planned another protest for later in the day, closer to the time of the vote to be held late at night.
Municipal employees have been on strike since Monday.
On Tuesday, more than 20,000 people protested in Athens and Greece’s second city Thessaloniki during a general strike called by the main unions.
“I am now jobless, thanks to a piece of paper that has not even been voted into law,” Dionyssis Vassis, head of technical instructors at public vocational schools who protested in Athens, told AFP.
His work is one of the 52 specialities taught at vocational schools that will be abolished from next week, according to the bill which leading union GSEE has called a “tombstone” for Greek workers.
Greece has been forced to implement a series of painful reforms over the past four years in exchange for 240 billion euros in rescue funds put up by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The sweeping job, pay and pension cuts have hit Greeks hard, sparking mass protests and general strikes.
Now in its sixth year running of recession and with the unemployment rate at a record 27 percent, Greece is not expected to post growth before 2014.
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Am I the only one that thinks this was over dramatised. The students could still answer the question. So what that there was 3 possible correct answers… It just means that you still had to know what you were doing(and isn’t that what the exam is for)to get a right answer.
In my opinion they make the maths papers easier every year and still complain about how many fail. I never got bonus points for siting the honors paper and without a caculator to boot. We need to overhall our methods of teaching then we can worry about the exams.
You cannot overhaul methods of teaching with the current exam in place, I dare say if the exam were different so would the teaching.
Wow, he’s really on the ball! That only took him, what….10 days?
this happens year after year start at the top wipe the lot out including mr quin. put in a team that have passed their leaving cert who can check their qus… befour they send out
Here’s a maths problem… John works in an overspending overemployed and over unionised public service sector job that oversees the production of state exam papers. There were a number of errors in the final papers handed to students and the minister in charge wants to investigate what went wrong and how it could happen. Questions: A) How many public service sector workers will it take to investigate what happened? B) How many will actually be used? C)How much extra money will it cost to discover the causes and produce a report for the minister?
Let’s scape goat some poor official trying his/her best.
The minister is responsible – why ? See below
Paper One / Higher Level (EV) English
Paper One / Higher Level (IV) Irish
Paper One: Project Maths / Higher (EV)
Paper One: Project Maths / Higher (IV)
Paper One / Foundation Level (EV)
Paper One / Foundation Level (IV)
Paper One: Project Maths/F’dation (EV)
Paper One: Project Maths /F’dation (IV)
Paper One / Ordinary Level (EV)
Paper One / Ordinary Level (IV)
Paper One: Project Maths / Ordinary
Paper One: Project Maths / Ordinary(IV)
Paper Two: Project Maths / Higher (EV)
Paper Two: Project Maths / Higher (IV)
Paper Two / Foundation Level (EV)
Paper Two / Foundation Level (IV)
Paper Two: Project Maths /F’dation(EV)
Paper Two: Project Maths / F’dation(IV)
Paper Two / Ordinary Level (EV)
Paper Two / Ordinary Level (IV)
Paper Two: Project Maths/Ordinary(EV)
Paper Two: Project Maths / Ordinary(IV)
CONFUSED YET?
Now add massive cuts in funding in education.
Add political ideology to the mix and business lead education agenda.
I’ve no idea what your point is?
Wander
Neither does the Minister, the Department or the State Examinations Commission. Thats why the whole thing is a mess.
How long did it take to type that?
And how long would it take two men with two shovels to type that twice?
Investigation will cost 10million, take 3 years and not have any discernible outcome.
Don’t see what the fuss is about ! If there were possibly three right answers then all three should be marked as correct ! Also isnt how a student approached a problem more important than a correct answer. M xx
I’d imagine that whoever set the question will be fired.
Not if they can give a correct reason three times!!
Won’t be fired if they are in the Union. Probably will be moved and retrained in setting English exam questions. First though they need at least 6 months off on sick leave due to stress.
You must be joking Roderigo. They are civil servants. Incompetence is a pre requisite.
You can’t fire a public servant no matter how bad they are at their job. They will probably get a promotion as a way to move them from the role of setting exam papers without upsetting the union
Simon. Yes I actually was joking. Maybe a pay cut would be more appropriate!
“You can’t fire a public servant no matter how bad they are at their job”.
Yes you can. Ask any doctor or nurse.
Make other public servants legally responsible for their actions. You’d solve a lotta problems very quickly.
Like Quinn himself …. a mistake.
Like Gilmore …..another mistake.
Like Howlin…..yet another mistake !
Sack them too .
Shatter ……big mistake.
Hogan……..big mistake.
Reilly ………big mistake.
Yet nobody taking responsibility for any of those mistakes !
Rodigo, the exam was not set wrong, the mistake was made in the production/typing of the paper. As I’m sure you are aware the mistake was on the English version but the Irish version was correct.
Peter
Imagine how much better Ireland would be if condoms had been available when those mistakes were being made!
How ironic that I managed to do better in applied maths than maths! thats project maths for ya!
Poor public servants + terrible minister = examination cock ups.
Now that’s math!!
Poor private sector = massive recession. That beats a simple typo on an exam paper any day. :)
Questions were asked that aren’t on the new course!? There is so much confusion over what students actually need to know walking into their project maths exam. There’s all this stuff about different ‘phases’ of new course and the different textbooks and extra material not in the books make it impossible to follow. It seems the people writing the papers don’t really know what’s on the course either.
3 billion cant add yet gets the big job . Leaving cert mistake or down right count care less or are they looking for the big job
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