Greece
- Reducing Early School Leaving?/ Reducing Drop outs?
“The Greek educational system, traditionally, has been democratic and opened to everyone. Access to the Greek educational system is free and available for all at all levels of education (elementary, secondary and tertiary). From this point of view, undoubtedly, the Greek state and the Greek educational system provide all the means to every person who lives in the country to attend not only compulsory schooling but any level of the education system. The problem with this view of education in Greece, as elsewhere, is that not all students achieve, in practice, equally satisfactory results. From a political and a social point of view, this perhaps wouldn’t’ t have been a major problem if the students who fail in school didn’t’ t have, in big percentages, some common social characteristics, related to poverty, cultural differentiation, and culturally poor family environment.
According to the OECD in 2001, the percentage of the enrolments in elementary education was 98.5 percent and in secondary education was 82 percent. These numbers indicate that 2.5 percent of children were never enrolled in the school system. In terms of an overall view of the situation in Greece dropout rates at all educational levels should also be considered (Stamelos, 2002).
Educational inequality, as this is expressed in terms of school dropout, seems to persist in Greek education. It seems to be related to the specific characteristics of various regions, as the results of our analysis have indicated. We could safely argue therefore, that there is a regional dimension in educational inequality in Greece. A closer examination of the social, economic, and cultural characteristics in the regions where inequality is more obvious revealed interesting aspects and links. This fact indicates the need for regional, community or even school based policies rather than common national measures towards reducing school dropout and therefore inequalities. It also indicates the need for a more comprehensive approach to educational inequalities, which will take into account the specific characteristics of various regions and communities. It is well documented that we cannot fight educational inequality only in and through the educational systems. As educational inequality is related to other social and cultural aspects, it has to be combated in relation to them.” Retrieved from the article Educational Inequalities and School Dropout in Greece, Kyridis, A., Tsakiridou, E., Zagkos. Chr., Koutouzis, M., Tsiamtzi, Chri., International Journal of Education, ISSN 1948-5476, 2011, Vol. 3, No. 2: E11, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/ije.v3i2.855
- For better understanding of processes and cooperation within enterprises and companies?
The implementation of projects related to the virtual set up of companies, the active involvement of both teachers – through seminars and supportive educational material – and students through certain activities and interaction with the business world people, facilitate the better understanding of processes and the way companies and enterprises work.
- Support founding an own business?
The Secretariat of Youth offers to young entrepreneurs support to set up their own business both through several programs of funding and consulting at a free of charge base. There are several steps to this direction, however the high rates of youth unemployment and the bureaucracy needed for founding a company, confirm that there is still a lot more to be done.
- Strengthening personality and self-awareness?
Career Guide courses have the potential to engage young people to creative activities and help them identify and develop their skills; however the fact that a few hours per week are devoted to career guide courses and only in the last class of lower secondary and the first class of upper secondary education has a negative impact to personality development and self awareness.
- For finding personal perspectives for educational and professional pathways?
The participation of students to Career Days, their visits to various companies gives them the chance to see first hand the various professions and focus on the skills that each profession calls for. However the fact that on the one hand such activities are not that often organised and on the other hand Greek educational system mainly focuses on the knowledge and not to skills is a drawback of the approach and restricts the possibilities of broadening educational and professional horizons.
|