ATHENS – Greek high school students required to take online classes during a second COVID-19 lockdown were locked out of those too when thousands couldn't sign in to the online education platform that got snagged.

It happened on Nov. 9, the first day the online classes were set to begin with 

Education Ministry sources not named telling the newspaper Kathimerini that it was a snafu caused by Webex, the video-conferencing app used for the online courses that didn't affect other ministry systems.

The failure led the major opposition and former ruling renamed SYRIZA Progressive Alliance to demand that Education Minister Niki Kerameus resign, which didn't happen.

Government spokesman Stelios Petsas denounced the leftist party, calling the demand for the resignation of Kerameus a “joke.” SYRIZA, while in power until being ousted in July 7, 2019 snap elections, had said excellence in education wasn't a priority for the party.

SYRIZA criticized Petsas for “audacity” and said the ministry had eight months, since the pandemic began, to have an operable system in place, especially for a second wave of the Coronavirus the Leftists said everyone “knew was imminent.”

It also denounced the government for not providing students with the necessary technical equipment, forcing families to bear expenses in order to cope with distance learning, the paper said in its report.