Filenews 26 November 2025 - by Evangelina Sizopoulou
The numbers of students who face various problems and need support and guidance from their schools, especially from the Counselling and Vocational Education (SEA) teachers, who handle a lot of cases every day, are frightening. Among the issues that arise are students involved in incidents of school violence and bullying, students who are either victims or exhibit racist behaviour, but also children who are faced with domestic as well as sexual violence.
According to official data, it appears that verbal violence in particular is the most common form of violence, both for the children who manifest it and for the children who receive it.
Below are numerical data for the school year 2023-2024, as included in the annual report of the Ministry of Education for 2024 and which concern Secondary Education, where there are SEA teachers.
A. Students who were directly or indirectly involved in an incident of school violence/school bullying and received counselling intervention from their school's MSS teachers were:
>> Physical violence: 948 students (740 boys and 208 girls).
>> Verbal violence: 2,331 students (1,472 boys and 859 girls).
>> Relational violence: 1,193 students (590 boys and 603 girls).
>> Destruction of property: 277 students (218 boys and 59 girls).
By type of school, these incidents are distributed as follows:
In Gymnasiums: Physical violence 721 students, verbal violence 1,713, relational violence 869, destruction of property 197 students.
In high schools: Physical violence 91 students, verbal 347, relational 165, destruction of property 53 students.
In Technical Schools: Physical violence 108 students, verbal 203, relational 106, destruction of property 25.
In Six-grade schools: Physical violence 28 students, verbal 63, relational 49 and destruction of property 2 students.
In Evening Schools: Physical 0, Verbal 5, Relational 4, Destruction of Property 0.
B. Students who were victims of school violence/school bullying and had a counselling intervention:
>> Physical violence: 457 students (374 boys and 83 girls).
>> Verbal violence: 1,270 students (760 boys and 510 girls).
>> Relational violence: 660 students (298 boys and 362 girls).
>> Destruction of property: 135 students (82 boys and 53 girls).
By type of school, incidents involving students are distributed as follows:
In Gymnasiums: Physical violence 379 students, verbal violence 1,015, relational violence 497, destruction of property 101 students.
In high schools: Physical violence 34 students, verbal 141, relational 99, destruction of property 19 students.
In Technical Schools: Physical violence 35 students, verbal 97, relational 51, destruction of property 15.
In Six-grade schools: Physical violence 9 students, verbal 17, relational 12 and destruction of property 0.
In Evening Schools: Physical 0, Verbal 0, Relational 1, Destruction of Property 0.
C. Students who are directly or indirectly involved in an episode of racist behaviour: 519 of which 313 boys and 206 girls.
D. Students victims of racist behaviour: 270 of which 146 boys and 124 girls.
In total for both of the above categories, the incidents occurred as follows:
In Gymnasiums 533, in Lyceums 120, in Technical Schools 108, in Six-Grade Schools 21 and in Evening Schools 7 students.
E. Students victims of domestic violence (not sexual): 216 of which 97 boys and 119 girls.
F. Students victims of sexual violence: 64 of which 16 boys and 48 girls.
G. Students with reasonable suspicion of a victim of sexual violence: 39 of whom 9 boys and 30 girls.
Counselling and gender identity issues
Of particular interest is the percentage of students who were helped by SEA teachers with individual counselling, which covered the entire range of issues that these teachers deal with, including issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.
This percentage of students (for all subjects) was 79%, which "translates" into 39,088 students. The percentages per type of school are as follows: 80% students of Gymnasiums, 86% of Lyceums, 81% of Technical Schools, 77% of Six-grade schools and 72% of Evening Schools.
The counselling intervention covered various issues in all the above types of schools, such as:
>> Educational/career options: 25,052 students.
>> Financial issues: 5,906 students.
>> Student's health excluding eating disorders: 4,305 students.
>> Family issues other than financial and domestic and sexual violence: 6,372 students.
>> Behavioural issues (e.g. indiscipline) except for school violence and bullying: 4,318 students.
>> Social/emotional education issues: 5,699 students.
>> Addictive behaviours from substances and pathological gambling involvement: 1,282 students.
>> Issues of absences from school: 4,339 students.
>> Learning issues and problems: 5,987 students.
>> Sexual orientation and gender identity issues: 236 students
>> Family planning subjects: 375 students.
>> Other personal issues of the student: 2,752 students.
Collaboration with principals, teachers, parents and more
Regarding the status of the people involved who collaborated with the SEA teachers to exercise counselling intervention in cases of students, the data state that these were:
In 4,116 cases the father, in 8,138 the mother, in 318 guardians, in 411 other relatives of the children, in 11,841 directors, assistant directors and teachers, in 3,522 educational psychologists, in 716 clinical psychologists, in 817 psychiatrists, in 4,788 liaison workers, in 1,178 social workers, in 1,393 school visitors, in 199 family planning officers, in 349 employees of the SEA Service, in 628 officers of the Immediate Intervention Team, in 184 cases police officers, in 99 officers of "Hope for Children", in 288 officers from the "House of the Child" and another person in 282 cases.
