School Curriculum in Greece

School Curriculum in Greece

Due to mass immigration in Greece, we are able to assume that a lot immigrant students attend the Greek school, and as a result, school classrooms are not characterized by homogeneity (Kurdi & Papadopoulos, 2003). However, Greek educational system is still monocultural and monolingual and does not promote bilingual education although there are students from different countries with different language and culture (Katsikas & Politou, 2005).

The Greek school continue to be monolingual because there is a belief that with this way there is a continuation of Hellenism (Zampeta, 2003). However, it was observed that in many countries with monolingual educational system immigrant students do not have an equivalent school performance and their native classmates have a better performance than them (Pisa, 2003). We can assume that education is an important factor of social cohesion, because several norms and values are transmitted by education to students, it is obvious that if immigrants do not have the same opportunities in education this will have an effect on their integration, however, educational systems in many countries continue to offer a monolingual education, and, as a result, the majority of immigrant students have a lower school performance (Pisa, 2003).

In Greece, where, the education is still based on a monolingual educational system, it was observed that the 43,75% of Greek students have an excellent school performance in primary school whereas only the 2,67% of immigrant students have the same school perfomance (Sinanidou & Tzortzi, 2005). Moreover, the 11,5% of immigrant students have a very low school performance in primary school whereas only the 2,6% of Greek students have a very low p...

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...other hand, immigrant parents, face several economic difficulties in Greece and as a consequence, they do not have a lot of expectations from their children’s education (Damanakis, 2005). After that, we are able to assume the importance of cultural capital and economic status and how these factors have an effect on educational attainment, helping Pontic Greek students to have more chances to succeed in education.

However, it is quite useful, to mention the similarities, of Greece and other countries such as Germany, on immigration issues, and more specifically in education of repatriates and the others immigrants, because this will help us to give an answer to our question about whether Pontic Greeks students are more likely to have a better school performance than the other immigrant students. The next section provides us useful information about this issue.