The results of the National Exams do not represent a failure for the thousands of students, who yesterday experienced for the first time the trials of life that lie ahead and should not be disappointed.
Others must be disappointed, as yesterday’s results attest to the failure of education policy itself, which has once again been left open for review.
The highest failure rate was recorded in History, where 59.87% of competitors scored below 10 and 35.1% (one in three competitors) scored below 5.
This was followed by Physics with 58.95%, Mathematics with 58.37%, IT with 41.27% and Economics with 40.90%.
When 6 or 5 out of 10 students write below standard, it is hard to believe that they all went to the exam without reading. Something else is to blame: the structural weaknesses of education policy.
Unfortunately, the results of the OECD “PISA 2022” competition are also confirmed, where the performance of Greek students is below average. The PISA test assesses students’ capacity for “creative thinking”, an area in which we lag behind.
The Panhelladikes of 2024 showed that not only is there a lag in creative thinking, but the History lesson shows that this year educational policy also failed in its… cornerstone, which is the “parrot”.
We have already written before, in this column, that education problems must begin to be addressed from primary education and then move on to other levels.
And the first intervention, however strange it may seem, is to ease the burden on primary school students, because their burden turns out to be disproportionate to the quality of the education provided. Instead of improving the way of teaching and the student returning home without having to open a book, the education system loads him (and his family, of course) with books to satisfy the parrot.
As long as we maintain the same model and when we try to change, let’s build the educational pyramid upside down, from top to bottom, so that negative results do not alienate us.