Gouves Township Asks For Help
On School Building Issues

In a maze of shortages, insufficiency and unsuitable school buildings which we experience in the Gouves Demos today due to a demographic increase and a general inactivity of state, we would like to expand on the Kokkini Hani Kindergarten, as it has evolved this past year.

The situation here unfolded as follows: In June, 2008, the parents who went to register their children in the now-obligatory kindergarten found out that parents everywhere in Greece would pay dearly for the state's mandatory "early education program." The immediate real problem was that the pre-kindergarten kids could not be accommodated any longer at the existing rented space because they by far exceeded the permissible 25 (+ or -3) limit, and the capabilities of the present space were not enough.

This caused immediate problems as some kids could stay and some others were turned away. There was talk of a lottery for the children on the day-long program and, for those not picked, their parents would have to turn towards private schooling. The parents, with the cooperation of the kindergarten head office, decided not to go the lottery route, but to demand the immediate renting of a suitable space. Of course, the main objective still remains the creation of an autonomous kindergarten, funded by the School Buildings Association, and really we are talking for two autonomous kindergartens given the rapid increase of the population in our township.   Thusly, with the cooperation of the Parents and Guardians Association, the support of the B office of the first level education in Gouves, and the Iraklion prefecture, and also saying "bureaucracy be damned," they advanced forth and found a new space.

So, here we are now, at the end of the 2008-2009 school year and there is in Kokkini Hani a kindergarten with two departments (day-long and classic) and its annex with one classic department.

Sure, the conditions are viable, but certainly not ideal. Especially as they are combined with the current intensifying rhythms in the kindergarten which limit the games and the free expression  as the kinder are pushed for early reading, learning a foreign language, learning computers etc.  Also with the sudden school-like rigid atmosphere thrust upon them, the kindergarten students suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar environment. Of course time will tell.