Evaluations of students to be more flexible
A new system of student evaluation will be introduced by a bill that will be unveiled on Wednesday by the Education Ministry, which seeks to upgrade, modernize and decentralize Greek high schools.
Among these innovations are allowing teachers to choose how they will conduct the mandatory four-month assessment tests for each course. This means teachers will be able to decide whether this assessment will be done with hourly exams, or with some other form of evaluation, including synthetic or interdisciplinary work, or group work.
What’s more, students will be evaluated through the “flipped classroom” test, as defined internationally, whereby a student is asked to edit specific educational material and present a part of the day’s lesson to the class.
“The quality of educational systems tends to be directly related to the degree of freedom and autonomy of teachers and schools. We show confidence in our teachers, who know best of all the special needs of their students. We enable students to develop skills other than those enhanced through written examinations, such as presenting and communicating the results of a project, synthesizing and critically analyzing information and arguments from different sources, as well as collaboration and teamwork,” the Education Ministry said in a statement regarding the bill.
These innovations introduced by the bill are also expected to decentralize Greece’s education system. According to Education Ministry data, Greece is an exception on the international level in terms of school autonomy as it has the most centralized education system of all OECD countries.
More specifically, it has the lowest percentage of decisions and responsibilities at the school level. More than 80% of educational decisions are made centrally, while the OECD average is 35%.
