*Corresponding author: George F. Zarotis ISSN: 0976-3031
Research Article
ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION OF THE GREEK EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
AND FORMS OF EVALUATION
George F. Zarotis, Dimitrios Ntalossis and Maria Koukoli
University of the Aegean, Faculty of Human Sciences, Rhodes, Greece
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2019.1010.4110
ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT
As the goal of education is to support the needs of societies through the formation of integrated personalities, the task of education is extremely important. In order for educational organizations, or otherwise educational units, to accomplish their purpose, effective management is a prerequisite. After all, several studies have shown that both student progress and behaviour depend on the characteristics and management of the educational unit. The ultimate goal of this research is to describe the structure of the Greek education system at the level of administration and organization. This study also deals with the forms of the evaluation process, namely internal and external, while further analyzing the concept of self-evaluation as well as the benefits of its application. The method adopted for this study was a review of the relevant literature. On the basis of the present study, it is noted that the Greek educational system is structured based on the principles of the bureaucratic model. Therefore, the Greek education system is centralized. This means that at local level there is insufficient scope for changing the structure of the education policy, as the services controlled by the Ministry of Education simply act executively, without the ability to undertake significant innovative initiatives and thus cannot provide proposals in the direction of improving the quality and / or upgrading the education provided. Centralized education systems were associated with the emphasis on the control of individuals and the regularity of processes, in the form of mainly external and formal Inspection, while decentralized education systems were related to the emphasis on products and mainly in the form of external measurement of the performance of students and schools. In order to adopt and implement an effective evaluation process, the active participation of all involved in the educational process is required; their participation in decision-making, the cultivation of a cooperative spirit within the school unit, the identification of the weaknesses and particularities of each school unit, as well as mid-term assessments - evaluations of the educational project.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to describe the structure of the Greek education system at the level of administration and organization. This study also presents the concept of evaluation in the context of educational units. As the goal of education is to support the needs of societies through the formation of integrated personalities, the task of education is extremely important. For this reason, there is considerable interest in evaluating the organization of school units, the content of the educational project, the means used for this purpose, the professional skills and continuing education of teachers, and ultimately the effectiveness of educational units as regards the goals and objectives they are called upon to achieve. Therefore, this study deals with the forms of the evaluation process, namely the internal and external, and it further analyzes the
concept of self-evaluation and the benefits that its application brings.
The Greek educational system is structured in three educational levels: the Primary Education, which includes Kindergarten and Primary School, the Secondary Education, which includes a compulsory 3-year lower secondary education ‘Gymnasio’, and a 3-year upper secondary education “Lykeion” (General and Technical-Vocational), and the Tertiary, which includes Higher Educational Institutions (H.E.I.) and Technological Educational Institutions (T.E.I.). Primary and Secondary Education is governed by Law No. 1566/85, while Tertiary Education by the Law 1268/82 as regards HEIs and 1404/83 as regards TEIs. The current structure of the educational system is a result of the reforms that took place in the respective time
International Journal of
Recent Scientific
Research
International Journal of Recent Scientific Research
Vol. 10, Issue, 10(E), pp. 35480-35485, October, 2019
Copyright © George F. Zarotis, Dimitrios Ntalossis and Maria Koukoli, 2019, this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
DOI: 10.24327/IJRSR
CODEN: IJRSFP (USA)
Article History:
Received 06thJuly, 2019 Received in revised form 14th August, 2019
Accepted 23rd September, 2019 Published online 28th October, 2019
Key Words:
periods, namely the period 1982-1985 (National Research Report - Greece, 2008; Koutouzis, 2008).
The structure of the Greek educational system is illustrated in the diagram below.
Graph 1 Structure of the Greek educational system
Source :http://www.ypepth.gr/el_ec_page969.htm
The administrative organization of the Greek educational system of the primary and secondary education follows the administrative organization of the state. Education policy is defined by each government and it is part of the overall policy chosen and implemented in various sectors by this government. The initial design and implementation of the governmental education policy, which must be approved by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, as well as the administrative responsibility of the education system in all sectors, services and levels, is delegated to the Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs. The Minister, through the ministry services and his/her advisers, prepares draft laws and presidential decrees concerning educational matters and publishes the Ministerial Decisions. One or two Deputy Ministers assume responsibility for specific areas of the Ministry, which are assigned by decision of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education. The matter that arises is that the bureaucratic model followed by the Greek educational system creates many problems and at the same time does not allow teachers to take any initiative (West - Burnham, 2003; Koutouzis, 2012).
As mentioned by Veikou et al. (2007, 55), the key components of the pedagogical framework of the Greek educational system are the detailed curriculum of the primary and secondary education and the corresponding teaching packages.
Accordingly, the factors that may influence these components are "(a) the successive educational reforms that did not allow the long-term consolidation of a particular educational process; (b) the lack of coherence between the levels of education; (c) the timetable that creates a deficiency in school time, and (d) attempts to modernize the teaching methodology".
METHODOLOGY
The present research is a bibliographic review study, presenting the critical points of the existing knowledge about the secondary education in Greece and forms of education evaluation. There is no specialized and comprehensive work on this subject in the relevant literature. This work endeavors to cover this gap and will perhaps also be a useful aid for those who in the future will attempt similar efforts. The main aim of the bibliographic review is to frame the study within the "body" of the relevant literature. The review of the current study concerns clearly formulated questions and uses systematic and explicit criteria for critically analyzing a body of published papers by summarizing, sorting, grouping and comparing.
Bibliographic review study
Administrative organization of the Greek educational system
At national level, the administrative organization of Greek education is governed by the Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, at provincial level by the Directorates and Education Offices, and at local / school level by the Principal of the school unit and the Teachers' Association (National Research Report - Greece, 2008; Koutouzis, 2008), as illustrated in the figure below.
Graph 2 Administrative organization of the Greek educational system
According to Antoniou-Karaolidou (1994), among the various ways of managing an organization, the most common choice, at least in Greece, is the vertical and hierarchical one, where decisions are made at the higher echelons of the organization and they are announced to the lower ones for implementation. In addition, the different departments are independent of each other and each one is usually informed only of what is directly related to its own affairs. That is to say, it does not have a complete picture of the functioning of the organization, nor of what is being done in other departments and therefore has no motive to cooperate with them. This often results in the different departments competing with each other and wasting valuable time and effort, which translates into increased operating costs and low levels of employee satisfaction.
In the bureaucratic Greek educational system, educational policy greatly restricts the administrative autonomy of principals by limiting their ability to take initiatives that will help change the educational policy, teaching approach, and curriculum material. Thus, they remain merely monitoring instruments of predetermined actions and activities (Andreou and Papakonstantinou, 1994). As Kapravelou (2009) states, the principals of educational units are merely representatives of the central and local government, while taking into account local interest groups as well. The bureaucratic management model of educational organizations results in the inability to respond to local needs and specificities, as the central planning of educational policy seeks to provide solutions to general education problems that concern all educational units and neglects the local problems that each unit may have individually (Athanasoula-Reppa, 1999).As a result, the principals of contemporary school units in Greece are limited to performing administrative work, which focuses on keeping and updating schoolbooks, handling correspondence and archiving documents. In this context, the school principal is an executive body with purely administrative responsibilities, which "arerestricted to the level of the school's day-to-day operation and primarily concern the control of the school functions" (Koulanis, 2008). In addition, because the principal is also president of the Teachers Association, no decision can be made without his consent (Sivri, 2008, as cited in Kapravelou, 2009).In this way teachers cannot take innovative initiatives' in essential areas of the educational process (Kapravelou, 2009, 553).Pursuant to the law, article 27 of the no.105657/ 2002 Ministerial Decreeit is stipulated that the school principals should direct the school to set high goals and ensure the conditions for their achievement; goals that will lead to a democratic and open to society school, while at the same time they should guide and assist teachers in their work, undertaking educational and pedagogical initiatives. Also, article 9 of Law 1566/1985 states that "the school principal is in particular responsible for the smooth functioning of the school, the coordination of school life, the observance of laws, circulars and official orders, and the implementation of the teachers association’s decisions, which are issued in accordance with the ministerial decree concerning the responsibilities of the teachers' association. The school principal also takes part in evaluating the work of the educational staff and cooperates with school counselors”(Government Gazette 167 / 30-09-1985).In addition, within the broader area of decision-making and implementation, the school principal must take specific
initiatives that are consistent with managing the day-to-day problems that arise in the school environment.These problems may be related to the relationships of the teaching staff, or the lack of staff, equipment or funds.Within the school unit, the principal is also responsible for operational issues related to the effective functioning of the school. Specifically, the issues that a school principal resolves are the following: additional employment of teachers, as provided for by section 13 of Law 1566/1985, replacements in case ofteachers’ extraordinary absence, teachers' strike or work stoppage; student enrollments, student transfers, student attendance, the issuance of certificates or degrees, the safety of students, the selection of flag-bearers and attendants, as well as the operation of co-located schools (Xochellis, 2006; Shaitis, 2008).
Types of education evaluation
Solomon (1999, as cited by the Department of Educational Research of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a, 6) states that "we can distinguish two general types of education evaluation, in terms of the position of the body conducting the evaluation in relation to the School Unit: internal evaluation and external evaluation."
Internal evaluation is essentially aimed at "improving the quality of educational work through the activation and conscious functioning of teachers" as it makes the school unit "a privileged framework for the development of innovations in education and for the shaping and continuous reconstruction of educational practices" (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a, 7). There are two types of internal evaluation. The first one is the hierarchical internal evaluation, where the senior (inferior) in the hierarchical administration pyramid of the school unit evaluate those in the lower (upper) grade. The second type of evaluation is the collective internal evaluation, or self-evaluation, where the bodies involved in the school unit are responsible for designing, organizing, monitoring and assessing the self-evaluation processes (Kastanidou & Tsikanteri, 2015).
The advantages of internal evaluation are as follows (Mcbeath, 2001; Educational Research Centre of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a):
It causes the activation of all factors of the training unit
It contributes to the strengthening of trust and reciprocity relationships between those involved in the educational project
It helps teachers to understand in a specific way the particularities of the school unit operation
It creates the necessary conditions so that educational staff can take initiatives and innovative actions
It helps foster a spirit of responsibility and self-commitment within the school unit
It helps promote and disseminate positive educational activities
It provides the opportunity to identify the weaknesses of the school units and to create conditions that will improve them and eliminate these weaknesses
It helps improve educational practices and change the culture of the school unit.
Despite the significant benefits of internal evaluation, there are a number of disadvantages that accompany its implementation and which are the following (Mcbeath, 2001; Educational Research Centre of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a):
The implementation of internal evaluation procedures may lead to a bureaucratic way of dealing with it
There is a risk of internal conflicts arising within the school unit
Less important issues are likely to be highlighted
It may cause introversion trends that will characterize the school units
On the other hand, external evaluation is presented in a variety of forms. It is carried out by bodies belonging to the senior management or as well by bodies outside the administrative hierarchy, and often has immediate consequences, such as teacher promotions (MacDonald, 2003; Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a). The most common form of external evaluation is inspection.
The advantages of inspection are the following (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a):
It facilitates the formulation of broader improvement proposals through the comparability of the opinions it provides
It can bean incentive to ensure the quality of the educational work
Itprovidescriteriaforcompliancewiththeeducationallegi slationandindirectlyexternallegalizationforteachercare erdevelopment
It takes place in a specific and limited time, therefore it does not burden teachers’ workload
It enables, to some extent, the comparison of both school units and teachers
Both the strengths and weaknesses of school units and teachers are more easily identified.
However, the external evaluation method also has some disadvantages, which are the following (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a):
Many times, it promotes teachers' fear of awareness and self-consciousness
It is not uncommon that inspectors' judgments are not grounded, and at the same time the subjectivity factor is also involved
It provokes individualism and it does not promote the collective spirit that should characterize a school unit
It may present an image of school units and teachers, which is formal, false, and unfair, and therefore it does not reflect the reality.
In order for the evaluation to be as fair and objective as possible, according to Law 2525/1997the
evaluators should
(http://www.fa3.gr/nomothesia_2/nomoth_education/2 _axiologisi.htm):
«Becharacterized by integrity and courtesy at all stages of the evaluation process,
Ensure the cooperation of the person assessed at the various stages of the evaluation process
Be honest and explicit when communicating with the person assessed
Ensure that they enhance the objectivity, validity and reliability of their evaluations by assessments that derive from strong data and are based on the specific criteria selected. Also, they should ensure that their judgments are documented, reliable, valid, objective and complete."
Evaluation systems have traditionally been associated with the administration form of educational units. Centralized education systems were associated with the emphasis on the control of individuals and the regularity of processes, and in the form of mainly external and formal Inspection, while decentralized education systems were related to the emphasis on products and mainly on the form of external measurement of students’ and schools’ performance. However, this traditional view is not valid today due to two phenomena. The first is the influence and interaction between education systems in different countries. The second is the fact that the power relations of the educational units’ bodies, the social needs, and the interaction between the educational system and the political system of each country are constantly changing (Solomon, 1998).
The concept and contribution of self-evaluation
Self-evaluation aims to improve the educational work produced by a school unit and can be defined as a process performed by the school unit to systematically gather information on how it operates. Furthermore, this information is analyzed and evaluated and decisions are made in order to improve the quality of education provided by the school unit. In addition, it can be seen as an overall assessment of the school unit conducted by the unit itself for the purpose of improvement. (http://www.paideia.org.cy/upload/ShedioAxiologisis/pdf2/3_si stima_axiologisis_sxolikis_monadas.pdf).
The objectives of self-evaluation are (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a, 9):
1. "to promote the school unit to become the key factor for the planning and evaluation of its educational work 2. the development of evaluation culture in schools 3. that executives and teaching staff will gain experience
in the field of assessment
4. to take initiatives for action planning and problem solving
5. ongoing feed back on educational policy planning and the definition of training and other interventions”.
The advantages of self-evaluation are the following (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a, 9)http://www.paideia.org.cy/upload/ShedioAxiologisis/pdf2/3_ sistima_axiologisis_sxolikis_monadas.pdf):
It helps clarify the problems and weaknesses of the school units
It leads to the improvement of school units and thus of the educational system of a country
It indicates the areas that teachers need additional training and thus contributes to their professional development
It promotes self-criticism and reflection as regards the educational staff
It promotes the principles of democracy and transparency, as it is implemented by those involved in the educational process themselves
It supports the autonomy of the school unit
The importance of the self-evaluation process lies in its relevance to assessment, which 'is a process that encompasses values and goals, which can be distinguished in two areas: the achievement of goals with regard to the school policy and those directly involved, as well as teachers' own professional development»,
(http://www.paideia.org.cy/upload/ShedioAxiologisis/pdf2/3_si stima_axiologisis_sxolikis_monadas.pdf).
In the process of self-evaluation, particular importance is given to teacher evaluation. According to article 5 of Law 2986/2002 "Organization of the Regional Services of Primary and Secondary Education, evaluation of educational work and teachers, teacher training and other provisions", the purpose of teacher evaluation is (Law 2986 / 2002, Greek Government Gazette 24/13 - 02 - 2002):
1. "to enhance their self-knowledge about their scientific composition, their pedagogical training and their teaching ability,
2. to form a well-founded image of their work performance,
3. to improve what they offer to the students by making use of the findings and guidance of the evaluators, 4. to pinpoint the weaknesses of their teaching work and
to attempt to eliminate them,
5. to offer teachers satisfaction by acknowledging their work, and motivate those who wish to further develop and to serve in executive positions of education, 6. toidentify their training needs and to determine the
content of such training,
7. to cultivate a climate of mutual respect and trust».
With reference to the self-evaluation of the educational project, the framework within which this process is formulated consists of four levels of analysis. The first level consists of five thematic fields: 1st) Media - Resources - Human Resources, 2nd) School Organization and Management, 3rd) Climate and Relationships in School, 4th) Educational processes, 5th) Educational outcomes. The second level consists of the evaluation fields, which are the organization and administration of the school unit, as well as the utilization of school resources. The third level consists of the evaluation indicators, and finally the fourth level consists of the evaluation criteria (Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a, 11).
In general, the self-evaluation procedures of the educational unit are divided into two sub-procedures (Educational Research
Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007b, 5):
a. The process of general assessment of the school unit. b. The process of systematically investigating selected
areas of the school's educational work.
CONCLUSION
According to Vlachos (2008), during the last 40 years, and more specifically during the period 1964 - 2002, six (6) basic laws on education, eleven (11) separate regulations, and numerous regulatory acts have been adopted. It is noteworthy that Law 1566/85 alone provides for 145 such acts, many of which have never been adopted, and all of these reforms have not been accompanied by an evaluation report to determine the efficiency of Greek schools and the extent of the effectiveness of these reforms or the reasons for their ineffectiveness. As a result, despite these reforms, problems in the Greek education system still exist. Thus, one of the main reasons that prompted the researcher to choose this topic is Vlachou's (2008, 8) finding that: "although it is scientifically documented that on the one hand any educational change is intrinsically, endemically and inevitably non-linear, and on the other hand that complexity is an element of change, and therefore coherent planning is required, rarely changes made from time to time have been incorporated into an, at least, medium-term planning framework ", while rarely as well "changes have been promoted based on specific conditions of system quality and efficiency ". Like the changes that have been made to the Greek education system with the implementation of "Kallikratis", which resulted in the abolition and merger of educational units. The current financial crisis in Greece and the structural measures taken by various governments in the framework of the signed memorandums have led to a further reduction in education funds, the non-existence of the Textbook Publishing Organization as well as to a number of measures and policies that, as a result, have added further problems to the functioning of school organizations and further reduced the quality and effectiveness of education in Greece. In order to adopt and implement an effective evaluation process, the active participation of all involved in the educational process is needed; their involvement in decision making, fostering a cooperative spirit within the school unit, identifying the weaknesses and particularities of the school unit, as well as mid-term evaluations of the educational work (Katsarou & Tsafos, 2001; Eurydice, 2004;).
Finally, a holistic model concept of education in Greece should contribute constructively to the debate with regard to upgrading and improving the quality of Greek education, through the creation of new structures of the organization and functions of the Greek school, but also through the adoption of a new school culture, more student-centred and with an emphasis on the local community and the needs and dictates of the wider society.
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Web pages
1. http://www.ypepth.gr/el_ec_page969.htm
(Educational Research Center of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, 2007a).
How to cite this article:
George F. Zarotis, Dimitrios Ntalossis and Maria Koukoli., 2019, Administrative Organization of the Greek Educational System and forms of Evaluation. Int J Recent Sci Res. 10(10), pp.35480-35485. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2019.1010.4110
