the country of refugee and migrant populations during the past two years. The Greek Ombudsman’s general estimate, regarding the degree to which this right was ensured for minors from third countries during the past two years is that, from an institutional aspect, there is now a relatively adequate legislative framework which would allow the unhindered access of all these children to the educational system. At the same time, the competent ministry makes a systematic effort in the direction of a smooth integration, having in fact established a Team for the Management, Coordination and Monitoring of Refugee Education, with the exact purpose of responding to the needs as they emerge. Of course, in practice, serious violations were discovered and still continue to be discovered, which pertain either to groups of children,263 or individual cases.264 In conclusion, in order to consolidate respect for human rights, it is not enough to legislate, but any legislative provision needs to be enhanced with means proportional to the intended protection, and be the result of central planning, without ignoring the fact that at the same time the relevant provisions constitute established claims of any person from the state. 4. Lack of integrated plan or the “solution” as part of the problem Up to the beginning of 2016, Greece’s role as a country which populations from Turkey crossed, having as their final destination other European countries, served as a pretext for the lack of an integrated reception and accommodation system. As of 2016, the increasingly certain “entrapment” of the persons arriving in the country for an indefinite period of time, forced the State to reconsider its position in the handling of the “refugee/migration crisis”. However, the attempt to organise and implement an integrated and effective plan for meeting the living needs of the thirdcountry nationals does not appear, to this date, to have succeeded, despite the consecutive announcements of the involved agencies. 263 For example, children over 15 years old for which there is no provision for the operation of DYEPs or reception classes in the regular programme, children of kindergarten age at accommodation centers, since up to February 2017 no kindergarten branches were operating in the framework of the DYEPs, children remaining in Reception and Identification Centers (hotspots), where no DYEPs have been established. 264 e.g. refusal of enrolment in a school within the urban fabric due to missing supporting documents or by invoking lack of capacity. The failures, shortages, and the image of an Administration that is struggling to meet needs that appear to overwhelm it constantly, in each one of the areas we examined (operational, regulatory and rights), have as a common background the failure of the key national and European stakeholders, to realise in time, before 2015 and 2016, which is the period investigated by this report, and to interpret in political terms the situation unfolding in the field. The estimate, initially that the refugees/migrants will not come, then that those that came will quickly leave and go “somewhere else”, and finally, that those that stayed will encounter hardships, will despair and will turn back, are different aspects of this absence of political planning that prevailed in the reaction of the European and Greek Administration. The effort of an exclusively managerial approach towards a crisis with serious financial, social and political aspects, could not have much success, beyond the hope for a management-administrative miracle, which did not however materialise. This is not to minimise in any case the hard work of those members of the machinery of state, and mainly the police and the armed forces, who not only fought hard to fulfil their duties and their mission, but often found themselves meeting real and urgent needs in fields far from their competences. It does not also minimise the voluntary offer of citizens, organisations and societies, which, using all means available to them, tried to bridge the gaps of the machinery of state. The fact however is that the State and the Administration, at least at central level, not only appeared unprepared, while they should have been prepared, but, at least during the first period, failed to give a convincing answer to the anxiety of all the thirdcountry nationals that continued to arrive in the country, as well as the Greek citizens that were worried about the consequences on their already difficult daily life. The absence of an operational plan by the Greek State appears to be an integral part of the general pathology of the Greek system in the management of the needs of the migration/refugee populations, which led to a great extent to the inability of assuring several of the fundamental conditions for the reception and accommodation of the third-country nationals entering the country. Underlying this pathology is the lack of political will to integrate these individuals, who are handled as transit populations. The problem was not primarily economic. Broadly speaking, 91