Vocational education

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.

Turkey is one of the countries with the lowest spending per student, according to a report prepared by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report titled "Education at a Glance 2016" stated that Turkey's public expenditures for primary and secondary education were below the OECD average.

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.

Lawmakers in the National Assembly have started discussions on a bill which could bring about changes to schooling and pre-school education.

The idea is to further divide the education system into various stages, breaking secondary education into two parts and allowing pupils to opt for either pre-university or vocational preparation.

The education council’s controversial decisions ‘enligthen education’s future,’ according to the education minister, despite harsh opposition criticism Turkey’s National Education Council committees have completed their annual meetings, after taking a number of headline-grabbing decisions that could shape the future of the country’s education system.

An education sector trade union has applied to Turkey’s Education Ministry to make liquor service classes, which are taught in vocational high schools specializing in hotel management and tourism, an elective course.

Turkey is a country that prefers to postpone issues rather than solve them. Not that any of our problems have truly been solved, but those we sweep under the rug and tend to forget are many times worse than the ones we’ve solved.

After my column about the transforming of the regular teachers’ high school in the inner Aegean city of Afyon into a girls’ imam-preacher high school (the religious vocational high schools), readers’ mails poured in. Here is some of them: