The abolition of quotas on the number of women admitted to military academies this year has led to a sharp rise in the number of female high school graduates applying this year for all three services, according to initial reports from the armed forces released yesterday. Today is the deadline for this year’s high school graduates to submit their applications for tertiary courses. Lt. Col. Ioannis Papatheodosiou told Kathimerini yesterday that 1,948 young women had listed the army academy among their first three choices.

Applications to military academies in general have increased over the past 10 years due to poor job prospects for graduates of an increasing number of other schools, to the point that a military career now is as much in demand as computer science.

Applications to the air force academy (pilots and engineers) were up from 12,871 last year to 12,973 this year. The naval non-commissioned officers’ academy has 1,435 candidates this year, while the navy cadet school received 3,604 applications, on 931 of which it was marked as first choice.