Greece closes more schools as island populations decline sharply

“Let’s go to war!” shouted six-year-old Giorgos at his older cousin, Minas, as the two chased each other with claw-like geranium stalks around the schoolyard on the tiny Greek island of Thymaina.

The two boys are the last primary school children on the far-flung eastern Aegean island, 40 kilometres from the Turkish coast.

“When I was a boy, the school had nearly 70 children,” 77-year-old Manolis Mitikas, owner of Thymaina’s portside cantina, mused over a game of backgammon.

Like the rest of Greece, the former pirate hideout is facing the effects of an ageing population.

The education ministry said it was shuttering 43 nurseries and 32 primary schools this year “due to very low to non-existent” student numbers.

Another 70 nurseries were merged.

The challenge is even greater in small Aegean islands far from the Greek mainland.

“If we have no more children, the school will close…and unfortunately, we have no more children in Thymaina,” Marigo Kottara, deputy mayor of the Fournoi archipelago of which the island is part, told the AFP news agency.

Greece last year recorded fewer than 66,000 births compared to more than 107,000 in 2005, with the population estimated to fall by more than a million to 9.2 million by 2050.

Thymaina no longer has a nursery and its high school closed years ago.

Six teenagers still living on the island take a boat to neighbouring Fournoi every morning.

Thymaina’s sole teacher, Konstantinos Fantelas, has to teach the boys everything from Greek to maths, history, religion and music.

Thymaina is only served by two ferries a week linking it to the capital Athens, a journey that takes at least eight hours, with a final hop from Fournoi. The connection can frequently be disrupted by poor weather, leaving islanders stranded for days.

Pirate lore

Fournoi’s cluster of islands off Samos have many secluded coves that for centuries were perfect for piracy.

The Mitikas family claims descent from the area’s last known pirate, Emmanouil Mitikas, who was executed in the 1860s.

“The pirate Mitikas was my father-in-law’s grandfather,” said Maria Markaki, a restaurant owner in Fournoi.

“My husband is still a pirate, he can’t get enough of the sea,” she joked.

The waters around the island have over 60 known shipwrecks dating back to the 6th century BCE.

Municipal officials now hope that a decade-long culture ministry initiative to open underwater archaeology parks in the area will draw more visitors.

The first of three is to open next year, Kottara said.

Cash incentives

Greece’s downsizing of schools has drawn complaints from neighbouring Turkey, which criticised Athens in July for closing down eight schools catering to the country’s Turkish-speaking minority.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has described Greece’s demographic problem as a “national danger.”

His government, which faces elections next year, promised tax breaks this month to parents with three children and extra cash for parents who have more than three.

But with many Greek families making do with salaries of under €1,000 amid skyrocketing energy prices, some local officials are taking matters into their own hands.

Earlier this month Nisyros, a small Dodecanese island with a population of just over 1,000, said it would offer €3,000 for each child born to permanent residents.

“It is the message that Nisyros believes in its future and that future is our children,” island mayor Christofis Koronaios said.

In Thymaina locals have waited for years for works to improve the island’s harbour and dirt road network.

“What are we supposed to do, raise the Turkish flag?” asked one angry islander.