From society’s hope to system’s pariahs
They have sat at their desks for thousands of hours, more than 4,500 hours through primary school and over 5,500 hours through secondary school. They have spent more than 5,000 hours in private lessons. They have missed out on fun and sacrificed their free time in the frenzied chase for better grades. Some youngsters even take pills to regulate their stress levels when the pressure of boosting their academic performance gets too high. At least one in five pupils suffers from stomach ulcers, migraines and minor panic attacks. They are like little adults, underaged workers who have been swallowed by a system that exerts upon them a constant pressure to perform. Many have been policed by their parents, who constantly monitor their school grades and behavior. Then comes the marathon of higher education – a second round of disappointments. After all, the future does not guarantee graduates a place in the labor market. The average Greek enterprise does not seek knowledge in its staff, chiefly because it does not want to pay for it. It does not want to invest in this knowledge and transform it into progress. As a result, even when these businesses recruit graduates, they do not make the most of them. Most Greek businesses do not cooperate with universities (unlike in other European countries); they overlook the need for constant staff training, preferring cheaper and more temporary labor. This trend no doubt contributes to the high youth unemployment rate in Greece, where 18.3 percent of men aged up to 29 and 25.3 percent of women of the same age are jobless. These are young people with broken wings, overwhelmed by the fear that it is not the national economy but they themselves who are responsible for their situation. They agree to work under substandard conditions, with a pittance for a wage and no guarantee that the employer will keep them. Miserable and insecure, these young people either blot out their woes by watching populist television programs or sitting around in cafes or taking to the streets to disturb the peace and quiet of the comfortable middle class. We have fed our youth hypocrisy, inconsistency and dishonesty; we have alienated them and convinced them to shirk their responsibilities; we have taught them that vested interests and nepotism are the way forward and that merit counts for nothing. But we do not recognize the outcome of all this in their cries. They are demanding – something that we have forgotten how to do, so much so that we regard their behavior as ungrateful. From the hope of society, our youth have become pariahs of the system.
