Chapter 2. Streamlining the governance and financing of Greek education

The central Ministry of Education bears a significant level of the administrative burden, but has a limited role in the budget process

The key element of the centrally run administrative pyramid is the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs (MofERRA). The institutional structure of the Ministry is well suited to managing the centralised bureaucratic apparatus, as is discussed below. At the same time, high-level officials are replaced with each change of the government or policy. Because of this, the centralised structure is accompanied by regular shifts in policy direction and staff, presenting challenges to the sustainability of the Ministry’s strategic efforts.

The Ministry includes four secretariats-general. The largest one is the Secretariat-General of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, which is responsible for education. The other three cover the remaining areas of responsibility: religion, research and technology, life-long learning, and youth initiatives.

The Secretariat-General of the MofERRA is divided into several directorates-general1:

• Strategic Planning

• Financial Services

• Human Resources

• Studies in Primary and Secondary Education

• Staff in Primary and Secondary Education

• Tertiary Education

• Several autonomous directorates.

The role of the Directorate General for Financial Services is limited primarily to the budgeting of the Ministry itself and of institutions which are directly subordinate. No directorate collects or analyses data about overall financial flows and budgetary processes in education. As discussed below, this weakens the ability of the Ministry to effectively steer the education system and to introduce reforms. Similarly, the Directorate General for Staff in Primary and Secondary Education is involved in the oversight of the national competitions for organic positions (developing procedures, setting criteria, and maintaining candidate lists), but not in strategic planning for the needs of school units in different parts of the country and for different groups of teachers. Only recently has the Ministry begun to establish a national database of schools and students (often referred to as “education management information system”).

Besides regional and district directorates of education, which are discussed below, the Ministry controls the activities of other institutions, as shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1. Education institutions supervised by the MofERRA

Source: OECD (2011_[2]), Greece: Review of the Central Administration, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264102880-en.

Figure 2.1 indicates the high level of administrative and bureaucratic burden placed on the Ministry. It is necessary to add, however, that in the Greek system, this burden is especially heavy, because it includes the obligation to maintain and manage the organic positions of each of the subordinate institutions, including the obligation to conduct national competitions.

In this way, the Ministry is closely involved in staffing and other human resource management responsibilities for primary and secondary education. The main administrative tools to execute this function are the regional and district level directorates of education. At the same time, there is no unit in the Ministry responsible for monitoring of the education process in terms of inputs, processes, and especially of outcomes. Instead, the Ministry relies on its subordinate management structures to make the necessary reports. However, it is well recognised that if different units of the administrative pyramid themselves report on their own activities, the value of the reports is diminished. The absence of independent monitoring mechanisms or institutions limits the ability of the Ministry to strategically manage the education sector.

Regional and district directorates of education support implementation of national education policies

Besides the Ministry itself, the administrative pyramid includes the regional directorates of education (RDE). Ministry sources informed the OECD review team that RDE directors’ selection process has been modified recently to strengthen its validity. They are expected to serve for a defined time period and are selected by a Central Education Council based on the same criteria as all education executives (including academic qualifications, teaching and counselling experience and an interview) (Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, 2018_[3]). RDE staff, like Ministry staff, have organic positions and are appointed through the standard Greek procedures. RDE are deconcentrated services of the Ministry, and operate as a single structure for both primary and secondary education in the 13 Greek regions (Roussakis, 2017_[1])2. They implement national education policies at the regional level, based on nationally mandated norms, regulations and procedures. Their responsibilities include administration and scientific and pedagogical guidance of education (Roussakis, 2017_[1]). RDE select permanent teachers (teachers with organic positions) and school unit leaders. For all intents and purposes, they are a part of the state-wide administration.

The same is true of state administration extending further down, to the district level. Parallel district directorates of education for primary and secondary education (DDE) operate in all 116 districts or prefectural units (Roussakis, 2017_[1]). They are a part of the national administration structure in the same way and sense as RDE, with their staff appointed through an analogous procedure. Interestingly, the Greek Republic has local governments, governed by democratically elected councils with local executive apparatus. However, the DDE are not subordinate to these local councils, but are financed directly by the state, and have very clearly separated functions. Their main role is to implement national education policy, oversee and control the activities of school units as regards compliance with the regulations and with new education policies, manage the allocation of seconded and substitute teachers at the local level, and provide pedagogical support to school units through the services of school advisors.

The structure described here is what is referred to as the administrative pyramid (this is also the terminology used by the Greek officials). The crucial fact is that, besides the Ministry and the regional and district directorates, this pyramid also includes the institutions where teaching and learning take place – the school units. These are examined in Section 0.

Information on the quality and equity of school and student performance is limited

As mentioned above, capacities to monitor education outcomes are limited. The only instrument allowing the Ministry to objectively measure the outcomes of teaching is the Panhellenic examination, taken each year by students at the end of the 12^th grade (“lyceum grade C”) and used for the competitive selection process to universities. In particular, students with higher examination scores are able to enrol in better – or more sought-after – universities. However, this exam comes only at the end of the school career of students who want to enter into university. Moreover, the results are not comparable from year to year, and therefore are of limited use to the Ministry in its efforts to improve education quality.

The Panhellenic examination process is highly appreciated by parents and by most education experts met by the OECD review team. It is considered to be objective and reliable, and is the one element of the education system which is universally considered to be invulnerable to corruption. This system ensures that there is limited opportunity for “buying” grades or for illegally paying for admission to tertiary education. However, because this centrally developed and administered examination is used mainly for tertiary education admissions decisions, the stakes for participating students are extremely high. This leads to considerable distortions of teaching and learning in upper secondary schools, and seriously impacts the education system itself. For example, in the final year of upper secondary school, curricula for subjects covered in the Panhellenic are narrowed to focus almost exclusively on content that may be featured on the examination, while teaching of other subjects is reduced. The focus of the examination itself (through the design of test items) is on the acquisition of knowledge (an information reproduction approach) rather than application of that knowledge to address problems in specific contexts (a competency-based approach). This reinforces the rote-learning approach to teaching in upper secondary education, as schools at this level prepare their students to compete.

The process of preparing students for the Panhellenic examination also distorts the overall education system, as families devote a significant portion of their household income to shadow education, or private afternoon schools, which often serve one function only: preparation for this examination (see Section 2.1.5 in this chapter and Chapter 3 for a discussion of shadow education).

Finally, it is important to note that no single test can measure proficiencies in any given domain exhaustively, nor can it fully capture the quality of student capacities; when decisions are based on a single high-stakes tests, some very capable students may not succeed (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of the equity implications of the Panhellenic examination).

The Ministry’s reported proposal to balance the Panhellenic examination with teachers’ assessments may help to alleviate some of these distortions (with the Panhellenic counting for 80% and teachers’ assessments counting for 20% of the score used to rank students for higher education admissions). The implications of this proposal for student equity and teacher capacity building are discussed in Chapter 3 and for school evaluation and student assessment in Chapter 4. Other instruments for monitoring education processes and outcomes, which are equally important for the Ministry to introduce and use are also covered in Chapter 4.

Adjustment to the crisis has been painful but successful

The smooth functioning of the administrative pyramid, which oversees the activities of primary and secondary education, was severely interrupted by the deep economic crisis. There were painful adjustments, including a serious decrease of teacher salaries and elimination of seasonal bonuses. In 2016, average teacher salaries amounted to 75% of their levels in 2009. Moreover, administrative support personnel such as secretaries, where provided, were withdrawn from school units, which put more pressure on other staff, especially on principals. However, these adjustments did not interrupt the work of school units. Similarly, despite fiscal constraints the provision of free textbooks to all students continued.

The crisis was most acutely felt in the employment and career advancement opportunities of teachers. The OECD review team was informed that the creation of new organic positions across the public sector was regulated in the Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the Greek government with representatives of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Under the Memorandum there is an attrition rule in place, which specifies the ratio of employees lost due to retirement or having left the public sector, and new hires. The law specifies that this ratio was to be 5:1 in 2016, 4:1 in 2017 and 3:1 for 2018.

The choice of sector where the new organic positions are created is left to the discretion of the Greek authorities. The government decided that education is not a priority sector, and as a result, no new organic positions have been created in Greek education since 2009 (Roussakis, 2017_[1]). Effectively, Greece has frozen hiring of new permanent teachers. This clearly gave Greek authorities more freedom to create organic positions in priority sectors, at the expense, however, of satisfying the needs of school units.

Over time, the natural retirement processes of teaching staff and teachers leaving school units have led to a serious decline of permanent staff in school units. Figure 2.2 presents number of teachers with organic positions in primary and secondary education.

Figure 2.2. Number of permanent teachers by level of education

Source: Roussakis, Y. (2017_[1]), OECD Review, Partial Background Report for Greece, Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs.

In the period 2008 to 2015, the number of permanent teachers (public servants) declined by 28%. The decline is particularly severe in primary education (almost 34% reduction in the number of permanent staff). Indeed, since 2009 there has been no new hiring of permanent staff, and therefore no need to conduct national competitions for organic positions, as described above, with the last ASEP examination conducted was in 2009.

To summarise, three factors contributed to the severe problem of understaffing in public school units in Greece: the economic crisis, the limitation on creation of new organic positions, and the strategic choices of the Greek government regarding the sectors where new organic positions will be created.

Substitute teachers have become prevalent in school units

The resolution of the problem of fewer organic positions was quite ingenious, both from an administrative and a financial point of view. The workaround solution involved the use of substitute teachers, in agreement and with the co-operation of the European Commission. The substitute teachers are employed every year for up to ten months of the school year. They do not receive salaries during summer holidays, and after the holidays (and increasingly earlier) may apply for another short-term appointment. Thus, from a macroeconomic perspective, they do not represent an additional long-term liability to the national budget. Further, the European Commission has agreed that European Structural Funds may be used to cover the salaries of substitute teachers (formally, these expenditures do not represent salaries, but payment for educational services, which explains why they do not receive salaries during holidays, unlike permanent teachers in Greece or indeed in other EU countries).

Over time, as the pace of permanent teachers leaving their organic positions due to retirement continues, the number of substitute teachers in the sector has grown. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of substitute teachers in primary and secondary education increased from 14 000 to 18 900 – that is, by nearly 35%. In this period, the share of substitute teachers grew from 8% to 14.1% (Roussakis, 2017_[1]).

Table 2.1 indicates the percentage of substitute teachers in the teacher workforce for different subsectors of education in the school year 2016/2017. Note that the table provides the number of teachers as physical persons, not as full-time teacher equivalents. This limits the accuracy of analysis, because in terms of their contribution to the work of school units, and the salary received, it is the full-time equivalency which counts. Central and regional education administrations are excluded from the table, because they do not employ substitute teachers. Further, unlike historical data cited above, the table includes preschool teachers as well as decentralised services (these are various professional support services working with students and with school units).

As the table indicates, substitute teachers have become a key feature of Greek education, accounting for nearly 15% of the teacher workforce, and their work in school units is crucial for continued operations of the sector. They are especially prominent in preschool education and in primary education, where they represent over 18% of the regular teaching staff, less so in lower secondary school, and many fewer in general academic and vocational upper secondary schools. The high share of substitute teachers in special vocational school units appears to be an anomaly; this is a very small subsector of education.

The last column of Table 2.1 indicates that substitute teachers are concentrated in primary education (over 53% all substitute teachers) and in lower secondary education (over 18%).

The use of substitute teachers is a short-term solution

It is important to note that the use of substitute teachers under the present legislation is not a good long-term solution. There are two aspects to this problem. The first concerns the functioning of school units. With the teaching workforce composed of two very different groups, it is difficult to achieve team unity and co-operation. Teachers with organic positions enjoy complete job security, knowing that they will be teaching in the same school the following year, while substitute teachers are in a precarious professional situation (see below). And while in school units in affluent areas of large cities substitute teachers are often a small minority, the OECD review team was told that in some provincial school units, especially those located on islands, substitute teachers dominate. Moreover, the use of substitute teachers is associated with constant turnover of a considerable part of the teaching staff. This undermines the basis for planning of teacher in-service training and for introducing new teaching approaches. As a result, the ability of school units to adopt and execute school unit development plans is weakened. The planned introduction of school unit self-evaluation and of some pedagogical autonomy (see Chapter 4) may exacerbate these problems significantly.

The second aspect concerns the professional position and professional perspective of substitute teachers. Their position in the sector is extremely precarious, without any certainty about their employment prospects in the following school year. Even if they find employment in a school unit the following year, which most of them will because of obvious demand for their services, this will very likely be in a different school. This seriously reduces their positive engagement in the school development plans and their motivation to closely co-operate with their students’ parents. Further, not being paid for holiday periods makes their life more of a struggle. Substitute teachers may be therefore reluctant to make investments into their professional development, such as paying for additional courses to obtain new qualifications.

The Ministry understands the negative impact of substitute teachers on the functioning of Greek education. Their main policy response is to stress the underfinancing of the sector, and to postulate a return to unhindered employment of permanent teachers using the traditional mechanisms of the administrative pyramid described above (see Section 2.1). This clearly would dispense of the need for substitute teachers. And indeed, it seems probable that Greek education is underfinanced (see Section 2.2.4). However, given the lack of data, it is not easy to prove that point, or to present a clear picture of regional and social variation of this perceived underfinancing.

Similarly, it is certainly true that a complete freeze of new permanent employment in school units is harmful to education. If the system of organic positions remains in force, what is needed is a transparent and objective system of allocating organic or permanent positions to school units. Therefore, a simple return to pre-crisis approaches is a policy choice that may have negative consequences and would require in-depth discussion.

The Greek education system demonstrated flexibility and creativity in responding to the refugee crisis

The ability of the Greek education system to respond to a sudden and unexpected crisis was very clearly demonstrated when a massive inflow of refugees arrived in Greece in 2010 (Triandafyllidou and Gropas, 2014_[11]). Initially, Greece was the main entry point of immigrants, although by 2017 this shifted to Italy (UNHCR, 2017_[12]). Most of the immigrants have treated Greece as a stepping stone and continued their precarious journeys further north, through the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Serbia.

From the start, there were many school-aged children among the refugees. Even though most families were intent on moving to central and northern EU countries, they often stayed with their children for considerable time in camps organised by the Greek authorities after travel routes out of Greece were blocked to them. This has created a serious challenge for the Greek education system to accommodate immigrant children, who very rarely have any previous knowledge of the Greek language, in local school units.

Remarkably, despite the bureaucratic burden of introducing new policies in Greece and the associated delays, the Greek education system soon began to respond to the challenge. This response occurred during the ongoing severe financial turmoil, which of course limited available resources. With many volunteers at different levels, Greeks managed to accommodate traumatised children, provide them a welcoming secure environment, ensure they could attend school units and begin learning (starting with the learning of Greek language, necessary for communication with other students and for classes). The good will of educators and the resilience of institutions revealed in times of crisis shows that Greek education governance structures have the resources and the capacities to respond both adequately and in a timely manner.

Interestingly and very innovatively, to provide additional necessary pedagogical staff to help immigrant children, Greek education used the system of substitute teachers. To fully use school unit facilities and to avoid potential conflicts, classes for newly arriving migrant students are typically organised in the afternoon, after day students have left the buildings. In many school units, these afternoon lessons have been organised with remarkable success, staffed by enthusiastic and caring substitute teachers. They have had to learn, largely on their own and through improvisation and trial and error, how to approach traumatised children, how to encourage them to attend classes, what pedagogical programme to adopt for their students, and how to adjust for cultural and social differences. In some ways, the allocation of necessary substitute teachers required less time and could be organised more quickly than would be the case for permanent teachers (whose deployment requires complex administrative procedures, and who could not be employed in any case, due to the freeze discussed in Section 2.1.4).

Nevertheless, it is important to point out the inherent dangers of this inventive, ad hoc solution. Recall (Section 2.1.4) that substitute teachers are employed for up to ten months only, and typically are appointed to another school, if they are employed the following school year at all. Moreover, their next year’s employment need not involve working with migrant children, as this type of experience is not a part of standard ranking of candidates for substitute teachers. This creates risk that the experience and knowledge gained in working with migrant students will be lost, and new substitute teachers assigned to these students will need to start learning their new role. The same is true of the personal ties formed in the process between the teacher and the student, which obviously are of great importance when dealing with fragile and traumatised students.

Responsibility for school units is fragmented

Different groups of school unit staff are appointed by different institutions using different criteria. Today, the responsibility for different spheres of activities of school units is fragmented and diffused. Permanent teachers, who are public servants (teachers with organic positions), are selected by a special national-level commission, using national criteria and a credit system. No opinion of principals is required or solicited during the process of allocating successful candidates to individual school units.

The same rules are followed when permanent teachers apply to change the school unit where they teach. From the point of view of the majority of teachers, the most attractive school units are in Athens and Thessaloniki, the least attractive on remote islands and in the mountains. Therefore, if a vacancy in one of the attractive school units appears, many permanent teachers working in remote areas are willing to transfer. In theory, this situation could give school unit leaders in urban areas some ability to structure their workforce according to the needs of students or to the specific teaching programme of the school unit. However, as should be clear from the preceding discussion, current legislation does not allow this.

Seconded permanent teachers and substitute teachers are allocated to school units by service councils, organised in each DDE, using a different system of criteria and credits. The selection of both permanent and temporary teachers is performed without taking into account the needs of specific school units; it is based entirely on the number of points candidates have earned (and thus, on characteristics of candidates). In practice, this leads to permanent turnover of substitute teachers, who are employed again at the start of every school year and for one school year only.

A separate question concerns the ability of principals to appraise the teachers in their school and to terminate the employment of those who, over several years, were appraised as not being competent. Current Greek legislation bars principals from appraising their teachers, and removing a weak permanent teacher from the profession is nearly impossible. The professional opinion of principals regarding teachers is not included as a criterion for national competitions for organic positions or for promotion. Similarly, a negative appraisal of a substitute teacher by their principal after one year of work in the school unit to which they were assigned has no impact on their future employment prospects as either a substitute or for their prospects to secure a permanent position.

Technical staff are selected and remunerated by local government officials. Here the discussions with principals are much easier, due to local presence of interested stakeholders, and a lack of national procedures and standards.

The main reason this situation is problematic is that it does not allow the school to develop responding to its specific needs, or to acquire a common approach to the pedagogical process within the school unit. Indeed, some of the Athens school units visited by the OECD review team were very proud of the fact that they have a stable teacher workforce, and explained in various ways how this contributes to better teaching. However, these school units also had either very small classes, or no substitute teachers. At the same time, the OECD review team was told that in the provinces, some school units change over half of their teacher workforce every school year. In other words, they do not have the stability so valued in prestigious urban school units, which are seen as desirable work placements for teachers.

The inability of the principal to shape the teaching workforce becomes challenging if a school unit is academically weak and needs a school improvement plan. Major elements of such plans involve teacher retraining, strengthening of teacher co-operation, elements of peer learning (including stronger teachers supporting those weaker or less experienced), and joint planning and evaluation of specific pedagogical interventions. All these elements require time to develop and implement, and therefore become challenging if pedagogical staff varies considerably from year to year. School improvement plans cannot be effective without honest appraisal of the contribution made to the pedagogical process by every teacher, and ultimately without a path to discontinue employment of weak teachers.

Specific needs of school units are not identified

Many independent, non-cooperating agents are involved in the governance of school units. Each of these independent agents uses a separate set of nationally mandated procedures and national norms in their allocation of different resources. It is unavoidable that the same fragmentation appears in the budget sphere, with no single agent knowing, planning and managing the complete school budget (see Section 2.2.3). Therefore, the specific needs of the school units are not identified and may remain unaddressed.

These needs may be of quite different types. Some may be due to student characteristics. A heterogeneous student population, for example including non-native Greek speakers, or Greek students coming from very different family or socio-economic backgrounds may require additional positions of psychologists or other support pedagogical staff or extracurricular activity support. In contrast, motivated students coming from wealthier, better-educated urban families may need different type of staff.

Different types of school unit needs may also arise due to the allocation of teachers to schools. A school unit may have mostly young and inexperienced teachers, or mostly elderly teachers who are losing motivation for long-term professional development. It is sometimes the case that some school units suffer because of conflicts between groups of teachers. This type of problem requires close analysis and careful resolution.

Specific needs of school units may be related also to inadequate infrastructure. However, school unit investments are the responsibility of K.Y.S.A., a state agency reporting to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks. This means that the agency collects and assesses nationwide data on school unit facilities, and uses its own criteria for allocating scare resources. These are technical and construction criteria, which may be in conflict with educational and pedagogical priorities.

School units have no institutional identity and no autonomy

As discussed in Section 2.1 of this chapter, school units in Greece are embedded in an administrative pyramidal structure, with no clear demarcation lines regarding staff and budgets. The school unit has no influence over the selection process of its teachers, for both permanent staff (with organic positions) and for seconded and substitute teachers there are complex, nationally mandated procedures and selection criteria. The composition of the teacher workforce changes from year to year, and while the situation is relatively stable in large, prestigious school units in Athens, in some regions the turnover may be close to 100% of teachers.

There are two main reasons for this turnover. One reason is that permanent teachers are by law employed only on a full-time basis, so for some subjects a school may not have enough teaching staff, while for others, it may have excess capacity. In that case, teachers may be seconded from their own school (where they have the organic position) to another school. Such secondments are decided every year by the DDE (primary or secondary as the case may be), often just before the start of the school year. Continuation of work of seconded teachers in the same school unit is not a priority.

The second reason is that there is an increasing number of substitute teachers, and they are employed for up to ten months per year (usually for the duration of the school year). Due to the nature of the selection process, the substitute teachers allocated to the school unit may change – and very often do change – from year to year. As a result, planning teachers’ continued professional development becomes very difficult, if development programmes continue beyond a single school year.

Similarly, the school units do not have budgets. Separate budget lines are determined by different ministries in unrelated budget procedures, and are never put together, even for reporting purposes. The effect of this system is a less than optimal use of available resources. Indeed, in the period of fiscal constraints, the most important budgetary issue is to balance the needs and to decide on trade-offs between different allocation options. For example, if additional resources are available, they can be used to contribute more effectively to school unit academic improvement: additional teachers, additional pedagogical support staff, or additional school equipment. Analogous choices arise if budget cuts are inevitable. With the fragmented budgetary process, this type of optimisation of resource use is not possible. And even more importantly, it is not clear which level of the governance pyramid would be able to undertake it.

This lack of institutional identity of school units is underlined by the very weak position of the principal of the school unit. Not involved in the selection of teachers, unable to supervise and assess their classroom practice, the school unit principal is primarily an administrator. In addition, due to lack of secretarial support in the school unit, the director may have to perform many routine functions such as distribution of chalk to teachers, further reducing her or his ability to strategically manage the institution (not to mention her or his prestige).

The lack of school unit identity becomes acutely problematic for those units experiencing difficulties, which may struggle to provide quality education, and may need school improvement plans.

The OECD review team visited some prestigious school units in large urban centres and noted that they have ways of overcoming these types of problems, mainly because they have a stable teacher workforce and long-lasting principals, who over time had been able to develop sound pedagogical practices. However, the share of substitute teachers in these school units was very low. Lack of school unit institutional identity is especially damaging for school units that are academically weak and face large teacher turnover.

As has been noted, the Greek MofERRA has recently introduced plans for increased pedagogical autonomy of school units through a new decentralised support structure. These plans are certainly encouraging. Nevertheless, pedagogical autonomy can only be effective if it goes hand in hand with the strengthening of institutional autonomy and supporting staff capacity – in particular with the strengthening of the position of principals and their ability to assess and select school unit staff. Without that crucial aspect, pedagogical autonomy may become meaningless.

Define the long-term objectives for the education system

The Ministry has defined a three-year action plan for education for 2017-2019 with guidelines and proposals in a range of priority areas. These include a number of key measures to enhance teacher and principal quality, to provide support to schools, to improve administration and to increase educational provision for students at different levels. There are a number of policy measures aligned to this strategy, and an important volume of legislation being passed to respond to educational challenges and requirements of international partners. The Greek population values education highly and invests important time and resources, with high completion rates in both upper secondary and tertiary education. However, trust in public education may have been declining. Greece is now slowly coming out of the economic crisis and looking to the future, which makes it an appropriate moment to invest in education to contribute to shaping Greece’s future.

A number of policy initiatives and legislation initiated in recent years or now in progress appear to move in a suitable direction. They may however, lack a longer-term clear goal, leaving those involved without a clear vision of where the reforms are leading and therefore not willing to invest their time and efforts in supporting or implementing them. Greece can take this opportunity to look forward beyond the crisis and develop a broader consensus on what the aspirations and vision for the public education system should be and the type of education it wants for its children so that they can shape their future and the future of the country. This vision for the education in Greek schools could steer the system and inspire education professionals and other stakeholders towards achieving it. Having a shared vision is important as it can help ensure reforms continue to move forward in the longer term.

As Greece is now in the process of reviewing part of its national curricula, it could take this opportunity to weave the new curricula into the vision for the future of education. This vision can then inform a longer-term education strategy and provide coherence in the next phases of the education reform, which could also include the setting of education priorities, objectives and targets. The vision can help to inform and align the development of the curricula, of student and school assessment and evaluation, of teacher and leadership standards, teacher training programmes, and school support programmes.

To steer the system, the education vision would need to be complemented with a small number of clear, high priority and measurable objectives for educational improvement related to schools and student learning that could be pursued over time.

These objectives and targets could reflect the government’s commitment to both the quality and equity of the school system. Examples of objectives for Greece are focusing on raising the educational attainment for all, defining specific targets to reduce the proportion of low performers, ensuring that students in remote or isolated areas have good quality education provision; and/or ensuring completion of upper secondary education.

A compelling and inclusive vision can steer a system, draw the best people to work in it, and support cohesiveness and inclusion (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009_[23]). But it is important that major education stakeholders have an opportunity to participate in articulating this vision (OECD, 2010_[24]), including students, as education shapes their daily lives and futures. They can share their aspirations as well as insights and ideas. Their active participation also contributes to community cohesion.

When a vision is clearly communicated and shared by those involved, it can help secure a reform over the long term. Teachers and other education stakeholders are more likely to dedicate time and energy to their roles if they support the overall vision (Carpenter and Gong, 2016_[25]; European Commission, 2013_[26]). As an example, in Wales, United Kingdom (Box 2.1) a shared vision helps form a holistic approach to children’s development, and focuses not only on academic achievement but also their individual and collective well-being and contribution to society.

Engage stakeholders in the process

To conduct reforms in education, building consensus on reform objectives and actively engaging stakeholders can lead to success (OECD, 2014_[28]). The MofERRA has already made efforts throughout 2017 to strengthen the engagement of education actors including teachers, teacher unions, students, parents, business and community leaders, through policy dialogue at both the national and the local level. These consultation processes have focused on the different policy initiatives as well as on broader objectives, generally aiming to seek consensus with stakeholders prior to its legislative initiatives.

Indeed, consultation is a key strategy for gathering input that can strengthen policy development as well as buy-in and support for difficult reforms. Broad support may also improve long-term policy sustainability. Continuing with the recent efforts towards increased consultation in the development of legislation, Greece can take further steps to strengthen these policy dialogues to achieve the sustainability of its policies. This can be done by engaging stakeholders in developing the long-term vision of the Greek education system, its aims and values.

In addition to contributions to the broader vision, consultation processes bring those who implement education policies and reforms into the centre of the process. It is widely acknowledged that stakeholders display preferences and the capacity for action, which contributes to shaping the process and the outcomes of the intended policy. Much evidence has demonstrated that the earlier they are consulted and engaged in the process, the more likely the results will be successful.

It is important to define who these “stakeholders” are, as they can be formal (e.g. labour unions, ministerial departments implementing policy) and informal (e.g. unaffiliated parents, ad hoc political coalitions). Policy makers, formal implementers benefitting from an official mandate to implement the agreed policy, intermediaries or providers involved to deliver the effective service, lobbies and constituency groups, recipients and consumers of the policy, the media, and even policy evaluators are among those included as policy stakeholders (Viennet and Pont, 2017_[29]).

A national government also has institutions relevant to this process, such as evaluation, inspection or development agencies, research agencies, teacher education institutions, national leadership or teacher institutions, ministries of education and their staff and unions. Figure 2.1 provides an overview of potential actors with stakes in education, which are usually named stakeholders. In addition, for broader consultations, it is key to include the economic and social sectors of society. In schooling, key actors are found at the school level (e.g. principals, teachers, students and parents), and the local levels (e.g. school boards, school providers, local authorities and community, at the regional or national level, also including training institutions and education material providers).

Figure 2.4. Potential stakeholders in education

Source: Burns, T. and F. Köster (eds.) (2016_[30]), Governing Education in a Complex World, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264255364-en.

For Greece, it is important to first identify those groups which would be relevant to the formation of education policy and also those involved in its implementation. It will then be valuable to determine the range of mechanisms which can be used to engage stakeholders. Greece has been using a range of approaches. In some cases, stakeholders participate in online public consultation processes, and in others their representatives meet with those responsible for each subject and in others both procedures are adopted (Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, 2017_[4]).

There are indeed different options for consultation and stakeholder engagement in education, whether the creation of formal institutions or other types of direct consultation approaches such as public forums, online consultations, citizen panels, and surveys. An example from Alberta (Canada) illustrates how stakeholders may be involved in a social dialogue centred on values and aspirations for schools, as described in Box 2.2.

Other ways to engage citizens and ensure they have sufficient input include online consultation (as Greece is currently doing), as well as:

• citizen’s panels

• citizen’s juries

• deliberative polling (Delphi method)

• focus groups

• surveys

• citizen advisory committees.

More generally, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) noted that countries with well-established processes for social dialogue within the public sector have been more effective at responding to the long-term impacts of the 2008-09 economic crisis4. The ILO recommends that social dialogue may take be developed as:

• forums to exchange information

• forums for consultation and exchange of views on specific proposals, or to test a policy option

• forums for negotiation, with discussion on differing views, or areas where there are conflicting interests to reach agreements.

These three approaches imply different levels of commitment and outcomes. An exchange of information, the ILO notes, implies a degree of confidence. Consultation implies that careful consideration will be given to views expressed. Negotiation is the most binding form of social dialogue. Dialogue may be formal or informal, ad hoc or institutionalised (International Labour Organization, 2013_[5]).

For Greece, it will be important to find an appropriate approach or approaches that can be sustained over time. A combination of the above methods for deliberative and non-deliberative public participation may be used to ensure stakeholders are able to give input.

Greece may also consider developing a consultation institution that is more stable and consolidates education policy consultation processes. The recently established National Council for Education and Human Development (EICPDA) (Law 4452/2017), in which organisations of the educational community, social partners and competent public bodies are involved, should have an important role in consultation. It will be important to support its development, to ensure broad and transparent composition of the key relevant education actors, ensure its independence and clarify the consultation processes and impact of their advice.

Some international examples are relevant. A number of European countries have National Education Councils which bring together key education stakeholders, including teacher unions, principal associations, school owners, regional representatives, student and parent representatives and others to discuss key education policy reforms, provide opinions into relevant education legislation, and discuss and achieve consensus. They also prepare annual reports on the state of education in the country and take up studies of interest. Following a similar model for Greece that ensures broad engagement and participation as well as independence would allow the Ministry and other stakeholders to build on the recently developed EICPDA.

Empower local communities through the creation of school founding organs

Within the Greek administrative pyramid, local communities should be granted more control and empowered to address local education needs. The creation of school founding organs, which would be responsible for the functioning of schools, for their financing and for their compliance with education legislation, could achieve this goal.

Greek school units need to have their specific needs identified and addressed. The national system of norms and procedures assumes that these needs are uniform across districts and regions, and therefore fails to identify needs that are specific to institutions, such as disadvantaged or non-Greek speaking students, facility deterioration, teachers in need of training, inadequate or obsolete equipment. The specific needs of school units also include characteristics of their student populations, with implications on the required pedagogical interventions.

Identification implies a review and assessment of relative needs of every school, allowing setting of priorities for possible additional allocation of human and other resources. A common way to resolve this is by defining a local agent, such as a local government of appropriate tier, a local school board or a different type of school founding organ. Specific policy questions regarding this choice in the Greek context and the related terminological issues fall outside of the scope of the present report. The school founding organ should have full access to school data (except for student personal information), and be responsible for overall management of the school, setting of the school budget, selection of the school principal (or at least participating in this process), allocation of additional school resources, small school repairs, and investments. Typically, school founding organs manage a local network of schools, so their responsibility often includes decisions regarding this network, such as school opening and closure, school consolidation, forming and adjusting school catchment areas.

There is a need to distinguish school founding organs (or a local school board as understood here) from the currently existing Greek school boards, which represent the local community, including parents and teachers, but have no direct managerial and financial responsibility in the education system.

In present Greek conditions, this role may be entrusted to District Directorates of Education or to municipalities. Either solution will require far-reaching legislative changes. Certainly, school founding organs must have a sufficient degree of budgetary autonomy and sufficient resources for the required interventions.

If DDE become school founding organs, their powers will be very much strengthened, so their staffing would have to be adjusted. This strengthening however is necessary for the founding organ to be able not only to identify the relative needs of school units, but also to address them. Accordingly, regulations governing the functioning of DDE would need to be adjusted. For example, they should be able to allocate additional staff positions to the specific school (a psychologist, a social worker, an additional teacher, or a deputy director, permanently or for a few years), to buy some additional equipment for the school (such as learning materials for non-native Greek speakers), or to decide on minor or major investments programme.

If the role of the school funding organ is allocated to municipalities, legislative adjustment would need to be even more radical, as several current responsibilities of RDE and DDE would have to be gradually shifted to local governments. Such a decentralisation reform will require long-term implementation and will have to be very carefully planned.

Define budget procedures for the school founding organ

One of key functions of the school founding organ will be to conduct the budgeting process for all of its schools. This is a procedure in which the available resources, which are never sufficient, are allocated to individual schools in a transparent and public manner, to ensure continued operations of schools and to address specific needs of each school. These resources will come from grants allocated for education from central budgets, and also from own revenues of the founding organ. Transparent and well-defined budget procedures will need to be developed.

Transparency is crucial here, as it implies the ability of all education stakeholders to question the allocation, and hence the responsibility of the school founding organ to defend its allocation decisions. The overall budget of the school founding organ, and the financial plans (budgets) of all schools under its authority, should be made public. The position of the school founding organ is not easy, as it must make difficult decisions to allocate limited funds, and at the same time it should be able to rationally defend these decisions before different stakeholders (parents, municipalities, trade unions and similar). For this reason, introducing some involvement of all stakeholders in the budgeting process is important.

To streamline the decision-making process and strengthen the school founding organs, it is important to define explicit budget procedures, which would consider different needs and wishes of all concerned, and would reduce the subjective element inherent in most allocation processes. There are a variety of possible budget procedures – two very different ones are summarised below.

• A local per student allocation formula, applied by the school founding organ to distribute funds to its schools. This approach is feasible only if the school founding organs are large enough (for example, if they have more than five schools). The local formulas may allow for some variation of the national allocation formula, with limited deviation from it, may follow some national pattern, or may be any per student formula adopted by the school founding organ.

• A procedure of schools submitting their organisational plans of activity, and a comparative review of these submissions, with participation of representatives of all schools in each school founding organ, leading to adoption of some compromise plans for all schools affected. This procedure, besides drawing on the basic data of the organisational plan (such as division of student into classes, the school staffing needs, etc.), may also include support data, such as student numbers, execution of the financial plan in the previous fiscal year, or some narrative regarding the need for specific personnel.

The specific forms of the budgeting procedure, and the specific format of documents used in this process, will need to be elaborated by the Greek experts.

Redesign financing and provision of textbooks

A particular issue that arises in terms of school autonomy and public expenditure is the current system of provision of textbooks in Greek education, which is inefficient and wasteful (see Section 2.2.5). More importantly, it does not motivate those involved to update and innovate textbooks, or to produce robust books which may be used for several school years in succession. It also does not give schools the ability to choose textbooks which best fit the needs of their students. A focus on improving the efficiency of textbook provision may also be an opportunity to update and improve the quality of their content.

A previous attempt to introduce textbook choice in Greece was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the availability of several textbooks offered by different publishers is a standard way to introduce innovation and competition in OECD countries. A redesigned system of textbook provision should include the following elements:

• Several textbooks available for different subjects and grades, to be selected either by the school founding organ or by the school (but not by individual teacher).

• A procedure for approving textbooks for use in schools, to ensure that the MofERRA has ultimate control over the content of education in primary and secondary schools.

• The ability to use a textbook for several years. This may be achieved if the textbooks do not become student property, but remain the property of the school (or of the school founding organ). This will also safeguard access to textbooks free of charge.

• Freedom of teachers on how to use textbooks, including the right to supplement textbooks with additional material and exercises.

Such a system, common to many countries, will protect the right of Greek school students to use textbooks free of charge, and will force textbook publishers to innovate and update their textbooks. At the same time, it is important to encourage Greek teachers to use Internet-based educational resources, although of course this needs to be done in a safe and responsible manner.