Private schools see student numbers shoot up, data show

The number of students enrolled in Greece’s private middle schools has shot up from 5,912 in the 2015-16 academic year to 9,189 this year and in private high schools from 10,921 to 12,068, data presented by New Democracy’s shadow minister for eduction showed on Monday.

The data, from the Diofantos Computer Technology and Publications Institute’s MySchool tracking system, showed that this rise is more or less shared evenly between all the different grades.

“The explosion in private school enrollments at a time when the income of the average Greek family is shrinking is evidence of the decline of public education resulting from the government’s decisions,” conservative party official Maximos Harakopoulos said.

The data, meanwhile, also point to a small drop in the number of pupils at public middle schools from 272,697 in 2015-16 to 271,583 this year, and an increase at public high schools from 207,718 to 210,043.