Filenews 7 August 2024 - by Evangelia Sizopolou
Serious gaps and deficiencies in the Greek language have been identified in the vast majority of primary school students, who do not have Greek as their mother tongue (i.e. they have an immigrant biography), but are integrated into the educational system and attend normally.
This picture emerges from the Program of Attainment in Greek, which was conducted again this year by the Center for Educational Research and Evaluation of the Pedagogical Institute and which is carried out within the framework of the policy of the Ministry of Education to support and substantially strengthen students with immigrant biography. The aim is for these children to acquire a satisfactory level of Greek language proficiency, so that they can communicate and learn at school.
In the pillar of the program that concerns the assessment of the level of attainment in Greek of students whose mother tongue is not their mother tongue in order to be included in targeted remedial teaching programs based on their needs, the findings for the school year 2023 – 2024 are:
The vast majority (91.5%) have a level of attainment in Greek lower than B1 which is desirable. From the new school year, these children will be included in remedial teaching programs.
8.5% hold B1 level.
It is noted that 3,525 students attending public primary schools participated in this phase of the program.
Regarding the pillar of the program, which is the final assessment, i.e. to record the image of students who have already attended remedial teaching to improve their levels of attainment in Greek, the findings that emerged from 2,070 students are:
46.4% of students who completed their program achieved the B1 level of attainment in Greek.
18.3% at A1 level.
35.3% A2 level.
As "F" was informed, in the context of the Attainment in Greek program, the correlation of various variables that may be related to the successful achievement of the B1 level for children who completed the remedial teaching program of the Greek language was investigated. These variables relate to two main categories: a) personal/family characteristics and b) educational characteristics.
From these variables it follows that mainly three factors contribute to the successful achievement of the B1 level. The first is the children born in Cyprus, the second the children who have at least one Greek-speaking parent or guardian and the third factor the children who attend the older grades of Primary School (D', E' and F').
The survey was conducted for the school year 2023 – 2024 and was conducted with the diagnostic essays "You speak Greek I", which were administered from February to April 2024 and which are based on the assessment scale of the Common Framework of Reference for languages.
