Teachers’ glut causing bottleneck in hirings

As Greek universities continue to pump out educators, the new crop is joining more than 150,000 trained teachers on the waiting list for a permanent position. It is estimated that incoming teachers will have to wait at least 20 years to get a job in the public education sector.

A total of 17,320 students entered Greece’s some 100 schools of education in the current academic year, a figure close to the annual average of 17,000.

Meanwhile, leftist Education Minister Costas Gavroglou recently said that 15,000 teachers will be hired over the next three years.

This oversupply of teachers is made worse by the fact that, under Greece’s bailout agreements, authorities were forced to introduce a 10-year hiring freeze.

Experts say the huge backlog has a negative effect on the quality of university training and working conditions for graduates.

Speaking to Kathimerini, the head of the Panhellenic Union of Philologists, Tasoula Karageorgiou, deplored what she described as the “proletarization” of newly graduated teachers.

The shortage of teaching jobs, meanwhile, does not seem to be discouraging the Education Ministry from planning even more such schools. One new department is in the pipeline in Lamia, central Greece, and two more are said to be in the works in the north.