Kyriakos Pierrakakis analyzed the tasks of the Ministry of Education on the occasion of the budget debate in Parliament.
As he explained, the New Year’s Budget shows an increase in resources for education to €255 million, an increase of 16% since 2019, which he said reflects the Prime Minister’s commitment to issues and investment in education.
“The education budget has increased by 255 million compared to last year, an increase of more than 15% compared to 2019. This reflects the Prime Minister’s commitment and the government’s overall commitment to accelerate work on education and educational reforms by investing in it,” – he said.
The first piece of legislation to be tabled in Parliament in the new year concerns a range of actions. Among other things, 140 million euros will be distributed to 60 targeted campus structures. IEK will be called schools of higher vocational education.
Pierrakakis: We are concerned about the PISA results (Program for International Student Assessment) for schools. Outlining the three main goals of education reform in the new year, Pierrakakis noted that they will build on what the government has done over the past four years:
“The first goal is the following: to create 60 targeted “campus-like” structures in vocational education throughout the country. Invest in them 114 million euros through the Recovery Fund, in new equipment for vocational laboratories and 130 new teaching aids in IEKs, that is, new professions, which we will rename as schools of higher professional education. The idea is to enable these “campuses” to operate in a more targeted manner, tailored to the needs of each local community and responsive to the needs of the wider market.
The second goal: open school, which is linked to all the reforms that are taking place in the context of a world that is running because the era of complacency is over. An era of curiosity must begin so that we can learn from all the good examples that exist internationally and apply best practices to achieve as much as possible.
Speaking in particular about the PISA results, the Minister of Education admitted that they were cause for concern. That is why the next goal is “open school”. “We are concerned about the PISA results, but I did not wait for PISA to tell us this. Because all the reforms that have been carried out over the past four years are helping to reverse this trend,” – he said.
“In terms of primary and secondary education, our goal is to invest more in schools, with new books, many textbooks from 2025, go lesson by lesson, school by school and make very targeted changes to make the school a generator of social capital with more volunteers and revive it”said the minister.
It is noted that PISA assessments include multiple choice questions, but also questions that require analysis and application of knowledge to practical problems to assess students’ ability to apply their knowledge to real-life situations.
Recent trends show a significant decline in Greek students’ performance in these assessments, raising concerns about the state of secondary education in Greece compared to other OECD countries.
Pyrrakakis placed particular emphasis on the third goal: “Government policy is a free university because it must be freed from the shackles of government bureaucracy and government monopoly.”
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