The General Secretary of the Education Ministry, Yiannis Pantis, met at Thessaloniki with central Macedonia’s Mayors, in order to present to them the education plan for refugee children.
According to the plan, refugee children will join 800 classes at schools across the country. Refugee children aged 4-5 are to be taught inside reception centers while those aged 6-15 will join afternoon classes at selected Greek schools, from 2 pm to 6 pm. Each class will have 10-20 children. The afternoon classes have been created to ensure the psychosocial support needed by the children for their gradual entrance into the Greek education system. It is hoped that in this way, the schools will not be burdened by a sudden surge in students.
Reception classes will include Greek and English lessons, math and computers so that the refugee children will be ready to enter Greek or other European classes from the following academic year.
Students over 15 years and adults will be able to attend lessons for Greek language acquisition, sports and art. They will have the opportunity to study at technical and professional schools provided they learn how to speak Greek but they will also have a chance to learn their own language.
Yiannis Pantis said that “In Greece refugee children are between 20.000 and 22.000 but this number is continually changing, since there are children who leave the country and others that arrive”.
He added that 500 associate professors will be hired and 200 more positions will be announced for the teaching of the second language.
The education program for the refugee children will begin at the end of September in the afternoon, alongside with the vaccinations in each one of the38 refugee camps around the country.