Greek education: "Gender studies" at the expense of Sophocles

The association issued a statement expressing its its opposition to the proposed circular, which insists that the ancient classical play should be taken out of the curriculum, while the compulsory "gender and addictions studies" should be included in weekly thematic units.

The statement stresses that not even under the 7-year military dictatorship had the teaching of Sophocles’s Antigone been suspended, while they expressed their concerns over the issue, reminding of the uproar caused by the previous Education Minister Nikos Filis’s attempt to downplay the importance of the genocide of the Pontic Greeks in Asia Minor and adopt a summarised version of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations in the 1st year of senior high school.

The Philologists warn that the proposal to take out Antigone is one more move by the Education Ministry in its constant attempts to systematically eliminate ancient Greek language from the school curriculum. Meanwhile, the discussion over the incorporation of gender relations studies in the school curriculum will open, as the Education Minister Kostas Gavroglou intends to push for the compulsory inclusion of homosexual, transgender etc studies in school.