A story of Failure

There is a chance that this post will be kinda long so i want to apologize in advance.

Hope even those that won't bother to read it, to participate somehow in any conversation, this post might cause. It is about a story, a story of failure. Public educational system in Greece fails to educate the members of its society. Even those English i use at the moment are an experience gained in my life from no public service.

Anyway, the main point remains that public education does not manage to have a result. There are money spent, less than they should for sure, but they are spent in wrong basis from the beginning. I am not sure if something at all works as it should in general ,as far as the public education is concerned, but i will not comment much the elementary school, since its main purpose should be the proper socializing of the children through a boost of their individual and teamwork skills and it lucks creativity for sure even at this simple thing.

After promoting children to high school , it is the time point when things start to be really concerning. An enough quantity of knowledge (a bit outdated and overloaded at some points) but completely wrong distributed and almost without any other skill taken into consideration, plus some final exams in the last year of it, is what differs high schools students in general and their opinion of what extra education they will aim unfortunately. If u add in the package the constant ,for some reason, influence the family environment itself tries to have over their kid's educational-productive future they are supposed to have, then it will be clear why in Greece society is full of "educated" people, doing something else rather than what they were educated for in first place.

From the beginning of the high school, students are trained in a good amount of variant subjects most of which are trained in theoretical basis . Though regarding the way(s) , the training and the hiring of high schools teachers is done in Greece, it's easy to understand that students actually find difficult to obtain even the only thing secondary education system is supposed to give. Some kind of general knowledge. And the funny thing is that in "theory", it should be more than enough! At least more than the middle term of most European countries. But it is really hard to keep the interest of any child that it is interested, when nothing in the whole process wants to keep his/her interest. From the book itself to the teacher, from the strict building environment to a more obscure exams environment. Instead of it almost everything works against the proper education of the student and it has its sense, since there is no aim for a more spherical education of him. So the student is trapped into a dilemma of either i am able to learn how to know all these different shit or i will have no future at all. Which is rather weird to happen during a period of time, when society-market needs more and more specific people for specific jobs.

Of course, this situation can not alter in any way, unless high school manage from its start (even from elementary school) to identify and educate the rest skills of students, and not only the ability to memorize and calculate knowledge lucking in same time any training at least to criticize and combine those. What it actually tries to do, at least in my opinion, is to prepare students for an academical carrier it might seem funny as a sentence but the only skills it actually evaluates or tries to evaluate (and train in same time) is the ones an academician should have. It would be a shame not to memorize here that it tries to check the athletic, artistic and musical abilities of the students along with 1 or 2 (in some private high schools tho i am afraid) foreign languages training. And it is a shame, cause in those "rest" and more "easy lessons" no attention is given by anyone. When it should be their main concern how they will manage to implement more and more of these kind of "lessons" to help the student find out where he/she is good at. Or where he/she has potentials to become better, productive both for himself and the society later on. The result, however, is a 6 year training to conclude on guess what?! An one month exams process of 4 to 12 subjects depending the year past 15 of them.

Sadly this is the promising and desirable result of high school education. To prepare students for some simple and without any sense of logical evaluation tests on specific subjects, common enough for really large groups, in order to manage to get a more advanced level of education. It is quite strange the fact, that so much attention is given to those exams, as if they are the quintessence of all, which results to a total depreciation of the 5 previous years almost from the beginning of them. And finally the last year comes, the important age of 17, when students have to check a catalog of 200+ public advanced educational schools, and choose the priority with which they want to be evaluated regarding the results on those 6 ,if i am not mistaken, specific subjects differed a bit among 4 main categories. So someone who wants to be evaluated for chemistry school will get examined in same subjects with someone who wants to become a computer engineer. Weird huh? The focus on this exams' importance is so persistent and adding the lack of any guidance on how students will be able to choose their next step of education (if they want to continue studies of course - public education is compulsory for 6 years till high school) , that ends up to the common behavior of almost all students wanting to get a higher level of education, but first of all without any serious evaluation of them and also without any serious planning if those young members of the society will actually exercise in the future what for they will get a higher level of education.

So since almost no factor at all, helps the student to guess properly how he would fit better in the society later on, the last level of public education in Greece sticks on the plan too. Except some really few certain third level education schools, the majority of them offers a training of copy paste. or clopy paste as some Greeks would mention. As it is commonly heard, the hard part (?) is to enter to university level of education, not actually to finish the training... In the age of 18, student is supposed to have a future of 3,5 to 6 straight years of studies, without any chance of changing path - even in similar theme schools-. A future of doing almost everything, except get the proper accoutrements to continue in their lives afterwards. It is easily understandable though, that from the moment there is no planning of selecting the proper students for every specific school, there will also be no proper education even to those that were selected after all.

The situation is a total mess from the beginning, so in the third level of public education in Greece, it gets even more messy. The way, someone gets his/her diploma in the end of studies, is the most subjective situation i have experienced in my life. There are so many factors that try to influence this way, that finally there is no purpose in getting the proper education, since not only they will be able to get somehow the diploma, but also either they won't exercise the subject later or a family business already waits for them on the specific subject (even if they are not good for it) or something else. Students get no chance to find out what they should do in their lives. And the main reason for it, is that there is no challenge anywhere, which is something that has a great impact at the moment, since Greece mainly produces people that face a challenge suddenly and kinda late. Cause believe it or not, the only challenge during this level of education is to survive in an environment the majority of people would prefer not to be. But the lack of any alternatives and the false time planning of the educational system from its scratch, leads to the continuation of a path of no actual progression of Greek society, since it manage to lose the chance to get from its members their best.

To be honest i won't bother to enter in details where third level of education system fails big time, since for anyone that has participated in any way to it and has some common sense, just needs to close his/her eyes a bit and think how a common day in university is for him/her. For sure the image, they will see won't be even near of what it should be, regarding the standards of a so high level of education. Slacking and uninterested with the subject students and professors, walking inside old and not well preserved buildings with no advanced technological support where it should be, trying to avoid the really few people that really enjoy being educated for this exactly they do, or at least still pretend they do. Scaring students (and some professors too) have already start working in expense of the society trying to form the political word in this high level of education and try to show the first group the way out... But whether we like it or not, this image is a really long timed result of no planning regarding the meaning of an education system inside a society in general. A large amount of students past years tries to protest in various forms about the situation in third level of education. Sometimes their fight has some meaning, or at least is massive enough for things to start moving. After all the Greek government continues to do its best to continue this "i don't have a plan and i am not up to try to make one" educative nightmare, leading the society in my opinion to a smooth break down, since younglings have certain "dreams" after their education finishes, either to follow the river and service the public in general from a spot (!!! - as if we do not have already A LOT) or try to find occupation outside of Greek borders or at least "sponsors" outside border to provide their dreams The few family businesses that are still up and have any kind of future, are mostly in more agricultural provinces of Greece and they exist mainly because this wonderful educational planning of Greek governments fails to touch them!

I really do not know why i made this post in English. Maybe cause i have provided the link of this forum to some people outside Greece, or maybe because this post does the same as the story it narrates, it fails. Sure thing is that it was kinda long as promised in the beginning. Also many things should change in Greece as far as the education system is concerned and it requires some more proper planning regarding the needs of the society now and in future. In my opinion education system in Greece should be the zero point, where radical and proper actions should be taken and prepare the best investment a society can make for its wealthiness in the upcoming decades.

ps : you will find no announcement in the above post, considering the situation of the buildings institutions in any level of the education system or the books or any other kind of material aspect of the system in Greece. They just do not exist in any serious form same as the whole story.
ps2 : Other opinions or thoughts or anything are welcomed both in Greek and English

/cheers