Public school pupils still struggling in basic tests

Concern is growing in the country’s education community after the latest disappointing performance of Greek public school pupils in the recent PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) competition organized by the OECD in 2022.

It was the worst performance in the last decade in all three skills assessed by the competition: reading comprehension, mathematics and science. Indeed, Greece has consistently ended up in the lower rankings, performing below the OECD average in the three skills.

However, the situation with private school students is far more optimistic as they ranked significantly higher than their public school counterparts in Greece as a whole and compared to the OECD average.

Specifically, in text comprehension, the average score of Greek private school students is 504 points, higher than that of OECD private schools (498 points). The performance of private school pupils in mathematics is 498 points, with the average of OECD private schools at 494. In science, the corresponding performances are 510 and 507 points.

Education experts attribute the difference in performance levels with Greek public school students in large part to the way the country’s public education system is structured – which requires intensive learning by rote – but also to their families, whose sole aim is to get their child into university.

“They are only interested in the core subjects, which will be useful to them during university entrance examinations,” argues physicist Leonidas Kastanas. “School is regarded as serving only one purpose and, as a result, students lose interest.”

Another reason he cited is the lackadaisical attitude with which the students approach the competition and resistance from schools, some of which even “mock” the process. This attitude, he added, is reinforced by the secondary school teachers’ union, OLME, which is opposed to PISA program evaluations.