What if working youth could study in γυμνάσια [secondary schools]? What if working youth could attend in the evening, after work? And what if these schools need not be provided by the state? In 1932, when there were no evening state-run γυμνάσια, a group of students at the University of Athens would have debated these questions and the ways they, as educated people, could address the exclusion of working youth from mainstream secondary schools. Although the state has since addressed this educational gap, these hypothetical questions remind us that debates about educational exclusion and the purpose and value of university study are not new. Students in the past faced similar issues, albeit in different contexts.

Our group of students in Athens came up with answers to these questions. They formed Φοιτητικός Εκπαιδευτικός Σύλλογος [Student Educational Association, SEA], which aimed explicitly at “the intellectual growth, moral development and social education of mostly destitute children” and the “assistance and support” of the brightest ones, as well as the overall “intellectual elevation the Greek people” (Φοιτητικός Εκπαιδευτικός Σύλλογος 1932). 

A few months later, in 1933, the Association set up a secondary school in Athens with an evening timetable that fitted its students’ work schedules, and claimed it to be the first of its kind in the country. The school was successful and operated under SEA until 1937 when it was taken over by the Χριστιανική Κοινωνική Ένωση [Christian Social Union] (Law 453/1937), with which SEA had links.

SEA’s initiative came at a volatile time. The interwar period in Greece was marked by profound social, economic and cultural transformations, political instability and the spread of communist and fascist ideas in the University. After the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor post-1922, poverty and hardship among the population intensified, whilst debates about the ‘social issue’, concerning the living and working conditions of the working class, deepened.

Changes in this period also concern the social composition of the student body at the University of Athens; enrolments from strata of the population classed as destitute increased, remodelling the student identity (Vei-Christodoulou 2022, 140). These students brought to university spaces their own experiences of hardship and understandings of what was needed to support those from similar backgrounds to their own, reshaping discussions about the purpose of education and the social responsibility of university students. Although these are political issues, SEA were keen to be seen as a non-political association, offering a pragmatic solution to the exclusion of working youth from daytime secondary schools, and did not engage with more politicised Demoticist efforts to support the education of working-class people. Instead, for inspiration, they looked at the Φιλολογικός Σύλλογος Παρνασσός [Parnassos Literary Society] with its long tradition of evening education for destitute children and ties to the state.

At the time, the classical education offered in daytime γυμνάσια was generally not intended for working class students, so SEA’s initiative shows a strong belief in the intellectual potential of working youth. In 1928, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, for example, supported access “for a small percentage” of young people “who are going to constitute the leaders of tomorrow” (cited in Kyprianos 2015, 209). In 1929, in response to the 1928 population census which classified 45.10% of those over the age of fifteen as lacking literacy skills, the government established state evening primary schools for those above primary school age (Kyprianos 2015, 229). State-run evening secondary schools were only introduced after WWII and until then they had been the responsibility of the private sector.

Nearly a century later, SEA’s initiative presents an example of students as agents of social change. Their concerns about the intellectual and moral standing of youth and Greek people more broadly reflected contemporary dominant discourses on the perceived need for national unity and renewal which span across conservative and liberal ideological lines. Education was central to these projects, particularly in relation to educational reforms intended to strengthen social cohesion and the modernisation of the state. SEA’s vision of an improved Greek youth and nation through education inspired their action, to imagine and realise a process of change through the establishment of the school.

SEA’s intervention offers a window into student life in the 1930s and what it meant to be a student. It is an example of how students responded to societal needs and participated in civic action using a variety of engagement strategies. Today, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment when the purpose of universities and value of university education are called to question. SEA’s intervention resonates with current debates and efforts to reimagine the university as a more inclusive space, where students’ lived experiences are valued and where learning is applied to address real-world challenges in collaboration with local communities

 

References

Kyprianos, Pandelis. Συγκριτική Ιστορία της Ελληνικής Εκπαίδευσης. Athens: Vivliorama, 2015.

Vei-Christodoulou, Angeliki. Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών και Φοιτητές, 1922–1940. PhD dissertation, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, 2022.

Φοιτητικός Εκπαιδευτικός Σύλλογος (Student Educational Association). Constitution. 1932. Stored at the Forms of Public Sociality project http://www.public-sociality.uoc.gr/en/Associations.html . Kindly provided by Dimitra Lambropoulou.