ATHENS — Μain opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras on Thursday said the government had allowed the much-advertised distance learning in schools to turn into a "fiasco", while singling Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Education Minister Niki Kerameus as chiefly responsible. Tsipras made the statement in a post on Facebook, which he accompanied with a photo and a link to a news website report in which five children in the yard of a cafe in a village of the Municipality of Pyrgos were sharing two mobile phones to attend distance learning.

"Unfortunately, this image is not from a third world country. It is from Greece. Five young students in front of two mobile phones trying in vain to attend a lesson," Tsipras explained.

Tsipras accused them that "for six months now they knew that a second wave would come" but "instead of preparing, they were admiring themselves. Instead of reducing the number of students in the classroom, they increased them. Instead of making sure that all the students got laptops, they sent them water bottles and masks. Instead of strengthening the public internet platform, they made dubious contracts with a single provider that proved to be inadequate."

He noted that "once again the much-publicised distance learning is turning into a fiasco, leaving students waiting in vain for hours in front of a screen and many parents having lost a day of their work and patience."