10-11-16 Institute of Educational Policy upgrades Modern Greek, history at vocational high schools

“A skewed and deceptive picture of the teaching of Modern  Greek and humanities at vocational high schools has been presented in a segment of the mass media, based on a recent announcement of the Pan-Hellenic Association of Philologists”, according to a press release of the Institute of Educational Policy (IEP).  In order to restore the truth and offer objective, multi-faceted information, IEP wishes to make the following seven points:

1. During the 2016-2017 school year, in the first and second years of vocational high schools (EPAL), we introduced the handbook “Modern Greek” by K. Aggelakou, Chr. Argyropoulou, A. Karaveli, M Raftopoulou  (First Year) , and  “Modern Greek”  by K. Aggelakou, Chr. Deli, El. Katsarou.
2. The idea that these are old and unsuitable books as compared to the corresponding General High School books is false. In fact, the curriculum based on which the vocational high school books were written was determined by a 1999 ministerial decision, as occurs with the corresponding General High School Curriculum. Obviously, a programme to renew curriculums and accompanying school books must include in the immediate future both General and Vocational High Schools, and IEP is already working on this.
3. The choice of the said teaching handbooks was based on the philosophy and principles of a communicational approach to language, which was used to create the curriculum for Expression-Essays in General High Schools. These handbooks cover the same subject areas as General High School books and focus teaching on the same morphological-syntactical phenomena.
4. The selected handbooks permit the concurrent teaching of Language and Literature, which is the educational choice in most European educational. This helps achieve a creative contact of Vocational High School students with literature, cultivating a love of reading, through various reading activities. It also establishes a substantial link between Language and Literature.
5. Moreover, these handbooks create greater possibilities to utilise other texts for language learning and current teaching methods (e.g. group cooperation), which allows a more beneficial adaptation of teaching to the needs of students.
6. Regarding the choice of literary texts, no one can seriously maintain that the writings of Cavafy, Elytis and Papadiamantis in these handbooks are not the best suited for teaching literature.
7. Regarding the weekly hours of history teaching at Vocational High Schools, there has been no change. The current schedule was set in 2013, by law 4186/2013 [Government Gazette 193,τ.Α ́, 17-09-2013].

The IEP announcement in Greek is available at the link below.

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