NEWS

Teacher numbers are plummeting

Greek schools face a severe shortage of teachers because the number of educators applying for retirement has increased threefold this year, while hirings have been halved, it was revealed yesterday. Spurred on by the reforms to the country’s social security system, which will see pensions trimmed over the next few years, almost 11,500 teachers have officially announced that they will be leaving their jobs. Of these, almost 4,000 are from primary education and some 7,500 are from the secondary sector. Last year, the total number of teachers who went into retirement was just over 4,300. The Greek Primary Teachers’ Federation (DOE) and Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OLME) expressed their concern about the severe lack of educators as soon as the figures were made public yesterday. These fears have been heightened by the fact that, due to cuts in public spending, only 1,425 new teachers are to take up positions this September at secondary and high schools. OLME said at least another 6,000 educators would have to be hired. The unions are also asking that a law be passed to ensure that high school teachers oversee classes of no more than 25 students. The government said that the lack of teachers in the education system is a mounting problem. «Even last year, when there were twice as many teachers entering the profession as there are this year, we still had 7,000 places that had to be filled,» said Deputy Education Minister Evi Christofilopoulou. Sources said that the government hopes to bridge the gap by hiring 11,000 substitute teachers and by recalling all the educators that have been transferred to other posts within the civil service.

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