The Ministries of Culture and Education announced the composition of the working groups that will work on its issues art education and them which “K” presented yesterday.

According to the announcement of the ministries, the purpose of the three groups of eleven people – theatre, dance, music – is to develop detailed proposals for the implementation of “a joint legislative initiative of jointly competent ministries to establish a university-level public school for the performing arts”, while the working group on music will also to have as its task “the development of detailed proposals for the formation of a national framework for orchestral education”. The artistic director of the National Opera, Giorgos Kumentakis, will also take part in the dance group, and all three groups must complete their work by March 31.

The establishment of the three groups was announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a recent post, as was the establishment of university performing arts studies, as well as two legislative decrees exempting from Presidential Decree 85/2022 the employment of artists in the State and legislatively extending to the municipalities the use of a special wages for artists, with wages to be determined by a joint ministerial decision. Both agreements were presented to Parliament on Monday evening so that they could be discussed on Thursday as well.

“Establishing yet another university school does not solve any problems with music education in Greece.”

For their part, the artists’ unions remain firm in their decision to strike today and tomorrow. A statement from the Panhellenic Federation of Spectators-Akroamas emphasizes that the determination of artists’ fees by joint ministerial decisions means that these fees “will not be determined by collective labor agreements, but by the respective government.”

Conversation with “K”President of the Panhellenic Musical Association, Vassilis Paraskevopoulosexpressed concern that eventually there would even be a reduction in the remuneration of artists who would work in the wider public sector, while further analyzing the problems faced especially by musicians and conservatory education, he stressed that “the creation of another collegiate school will not solve problem in music education.

Mr. Paraskevopoulos explained that the need for learning to play musical instruments is mainly met by the country’s 727 conservatories, which annually graduate about 700 graduates, as well as the relevant university faculties (for example, the University of Macedonia, Ionian University and the University of Ioannina) numbering several dozen. At the same time, the corresponding faculties of the university cannot be easily staffed with musicians, since they, as a rule, do not have the necessary university education, but have a conservatory diploma. The solution to this issue, concluded Mr. Paraskevopoulos, as well as to the ranking of conservatories, would be (in addition to their ranking in the category of technological education) to give their graduates the opportunity to meet, through additional cycles of courses and with the specific criteria of universities and relevant ministries, their university degrees .