Serious Greek language gaps in public schools

The vast majority of pupils in public primary schools, who speaking Greek as a second language, have serious language gaps, it emerged on Wednesday.

The results come from the educational research and assessment centre of the pedagogical institute, under the auspices of the ministry of education.

As per the ministry, a key pillar of its policy for language acquisition, is to ascertain the language proficiency of students for whom Greek is not their first language-usually pupils with a history of immigration.

The ministry provides for targeted assessment with the aim of inducting pupils into remedial programs based on their particular needs.

For the 2023-2024 school year, the vast majority, over 91 per cent, have a lower than the required (intermediate) proficiency level and are set to participate in tutoring.

A mere eight per cent of these pupils are starting the school year at the requisite minimum level of Greek language proficiency.

 A total of 3,525 students attending public primary schools were evaluated for the study.

As for final assessment of pupils who have already passed through the remedial program, findings were obtained from 2,070 students.

Of these, around 46 per cent-less than half-had mastered the requisite intermediate level, 18 per cent were at rudimentary level, and 35 percent had acquired basic skills.

Educational and socio-demographic variables were also investigated in the course of the study, to establish how these intersect and contribute to successful Greek language acquisition.

The three indicators which correlated with successful acquisition of Greek proficiency, were if the child was born in Cyprus, had at least one Greek-speaking parent or guardian, and was enrolled in the second half of primary school.

The research was done for the school year 2023 – 2024 through diagnostic essays were administered from February to April 2024.