Greek Model Experimental Schools,Too Good to Last:An Attempt to Evaluate

摘要

Since 2011,the Greek Ministry of Education introduced Law 3966—instituting the model experimental schools.New policies were applied to these special schools that differentiate them from other types of schools.The major changes were towards personnel recruitment.As for the very first time in Greek public education,teachers were recruited after evaluation and interview and students were joined these schools after national exams,too.On the other hand,some of the innovative educational methods implemented were the excellence groups instituted for the very first time in Greek public schools—participation in European programs(e.g.,Erasmus+)and open-to-society educational programs.Additionally,information and communication technology(ICT)was strongly introduced in learning procedure,teachers were encouraged to participate in highly rated in-service training courses,and a serious number of conferences were organized nationally.Despite of these remarkable educational achievements in 2016,the government decided to make some serious changes in the law,thus,causing fatal setbacks to schools’project plans.In many experimental schools,the five-year educational plan,which was planned according to Law 3966,was brutally interrupted,as this type of schools actually did not exist anymore!As the initial plan was predicting a major evaluation after a five-year period,these crucial law changes cancelled any type of evaluation,almost two years before the end of this period.Eventually,teachers were no more interested in producing and introducing innovation in their classrooms.In this paper,we are trying to record the changes caused to the number and quality of educational activities(excellence groups,educational programs,and innovative teaching methods)after these major law changes.We detected a dramatic decrease in the number of activities and exceptional disappointment to highly qualified teachers and educators.So,we are questioning ourselves:Were model experimental schools too good to be Greek,or these changes were too Greek to be true?