The new school year begins today with students returning to classes after the summer holidays, however the Ministry of Education has yet to cover the estimated 6,700 teacher shortages for this year. Schools in the Aegean and on Crete are facing the greatest problems.
On Thursday the Ministry of Education announced that while community and state funding has been secured to recruit 19,000 teachers – which is about as many vacant positions – the shortage problem persists.
About 12,000 of these placements will be covered by NSRF funding, which imposes major restrictions (such as not being able to reallocate available funding to schools in other areas). The remaining 7,000 placements will be covered from domestic resources (3,000 from the regular budget and 4,000 from the public investment program).
As previously mentioned, primary schools face the greatest shortages, the latest estimates show that special education schools need an additional 2,000 to cover vacancies. In total 72 million euros have been set aside, which will also be used to cover these needs such as sanitation and school buses.
Retirements and volunteerism
In its statement on Thursday the Ministry of Education argued that the teacher shortage problem was worse this year since 3,500 teachers retired last year. In order to cover needs, the Regional Directorates of Education have suggested the volunteer exchange of teaching staff between schools
