ATHENS – After a rough 2020-21 school year that saw Greece's students mostly taking remote classes at home during COVID-19 lockdowns, this year that won't be offered when schools open in September.

Students will be taught only in classes although they and teachers and staff must either be vaccinated or show proof they aren't infected or can spread the Coronavirus which is surging because of the contagious Delta Variant from India.

Schools will not go to online teaching this year and the government will choose other measures to tackle potential Deputy Education Minister Zetta Makri said.

“We will not return to remote learning because we have vaccination,” she told ANT TV, adding that the measures will be applied only in very selected and exceptional cases, such as children that belong to vulnerable groups. 

“If… there is a number of infections or a form of illness that requires other measures to be taken, these will be announced together with the protocols for the operation of the schools,” she added, without specifying them.

A series of lockdowns in the previous school year had forced all primary, middle, and high schools as well as kindergartens in the country's biggest prefecture of Attica, which includes the capital Athens. to switch to distance learning mostly.