Tertiary education

The number of pupils enrolled in vocational education rose by 22.9pct in the school year 2016-2017, to 84,400, representing 5.6pct of the total secondary school pupils and 2.3pct the total school population, according to the data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics.

AGERPRES National News Agency on Wednesday became a member of the National Committee of the Live Skills European project, initiated by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme, alongside the Culture & Mass Media Federation FAIR - MediaSind, the British Council and other partners from Bulgaria, Greece and the UK.

Some 1.3 million vocational school students across Turkey have started providing community services as part of internship programs, serving elderly, low-income, disabled and disadvantaged people, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Education sector reforms in the works aim to support students from low-income families while merging technical colleges and abolishing vocational training institutes. 

Why is Greece so culturally and intellectually impoverished even though in the past few decades tens of thousands of young people have sat the national university entrance exams, studied at the country's tertiary education institutes and graduated, and continue to do so?

The Council of State has lifted a regulation permitting governor's offices to unilaterally convert ordinary high schools into vocational religious high schools without considerating the needs of locals, a Turkish education union announced on Dec. 28.

The European Commission released its “Education and Training Monitor 2016” report, which among other things, notes that Greeks have poorer digital skills compared to the EU average, while there has been a reversal on tertiary education autonomy.

Greek university graduates have inadequate skills, compared to their peers in the rest of Europe, to access highly sought jobs, according to a report by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) regarding job prospects in Greece and Europe.

The education ministry's General Secretariat for Lifelong Learning has revoked the license of a vocational training institute in Athens and a college operating in northern Greece.

According to the ministry, IEK Xyni and the Mediterranean College in Thessaloniki did not fulfill at least one of the requirements for a permit.

Only 1.4 per cent of Romanian pupils are currently enrolled in vocational schools, which is not enough to supply the labour market with skilled workers, human resources experts and company representatives have warned.