High school students’ grades cause concern

An Education Ministry agency has raised the alarm over the poor performance of a large number of high school students and has called for immediate measures to address the problem.

In its annual report for 2019, the Authority for Quality Assurance in Primary and Secondary Education (ADIPPDE) said that a large percentage of 11th graders, in particular, at regular and technical public high schools are at risk of going through life with functional illiteracy - which is generally defined as having skills that are inadequate to manage daily living and employment tasks.

More specifically, 7.1 percent of 11th graders in public high schools in the 2017-18 academic year failed in the subject of Modern Greek, while almost one in two (48.4 percent) received grades below the minimum pass mark in physics.

Another 44.2 percent and 38.9 percent also fell below the threshold in...