TSEKOURA

NILE

Greek Report

Intercultural education and Migration

policies :The State of Art

Migration , representations by Media

Based on NILE report

By

DAFNI KEK – 2006

In continue to MIVAL project . \Patras Meeting

September 2012

By 2001, Greece was confirmed as a country with a substantial immigrant population, most of whom had arrived

within the previous ten years. The 2001 Census recorded 797.000 persons without Greek citizenship, of

whom approximately 650-700.000 were third country nationals

without claim to Greek ethnicity. By 2003, there were some 130.000 foreign children in state schools (of which, 32.000 were ethnic Greeks), constituting 11% of primary school registers and 8% of secondary school registers.

TSEKOURA VASILIKI DAFNI KEK

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MIGRANTS IN GREECE

With regard to the country of origin, 64.91% come from Albania, 6,53 percent from Bulgaria, 4,52 percent from Romania, 3,17 percent from Pakistan, 2,64 percent from Ukrainia, 2,01 percent from Georgia, 1,77 percent from India, 1,67 percent from Egypt, 1,5 percent from Philippines, etc.

According to the same data, 38,39 percent of them are between the age of 30-34 and 43,47 percent are women. The majority of migrants in Greece, about 51 percent, have settled in the areas of Athens and Thessaloniki.

Demographic studies predict that as many as 3.5 million immigrants will settle in the country over the next 12 years, consisting a quarter of the country’s population. The United Nations estimates that the population of Greece will grow up to 14.2 million by 2015. About 3.5 million will be immigrants from outside the European Union.

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Intolerance and xenophobia

attitudes

Insofar as public opinion is concerned, Greece has a long history of high levels of xenophobic intolerance recorded in opinion polls, although rather less visible in reality.

A 2002 poll was conducted by EKKE and University of Thessaly amongst 2.100 households in Attika.

In total, 44% of respondents believed that immigrants and gypsies should live, separately from Greeks, in other areas; in the poor neighbourhoods of Menidi and Aspropyrgos where large numbers of minorities live,

71% of Greeks said they would prefer Albanians and gypsies moved elsewhere.

Overall, high levels of racial intolerance were clearly linked with low educational levels and low incomes of Greeks (Athens News, 7/3/03).

As Charalambos Tsardanidis pointed out:

"Greece made an incredibly successful, organised effort to create a homogenous state and society, either in the battlefield or in the classroom, which should have been a model for all Balkan countries. Nowadays, because of migratory pressures, multiculturalism can no longer be avoided and as a result Greece is experiencing a cultural shock

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The media (1)

Greek television does not exclude immigrants, nor does it make many efforts to include them. Increasingly,

Albanians appear on tv shows and there is some indication of the beginnings of social integration; on the other hand, there are no tv programmes specifically for or about immigrant communities

One small tv station, Kanali 10, has regular news in Albanian and Russian.

Radio coverage is slightly more extensive, with the Athens Municipality station Radio 984 targeted at the immigrant community;

Radio Skai, which has an Albanian programme once a week;

Radio Filia, which is part of the state ERA broadcasting service, has foreign language broadcasts.

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Media 2

Greek language newspapers seem to follow a similar pattern to tv, with neither exclusion nor inclusion.

Two English language newspapers [Athens News and Kathimerini English Edition] are more targeted at the English-speaking foreign communities, although Greeks also read these.

There is a large selection of foreign press for a wide range of languages and nationalities, mostly published in Athens: these seem to be highly volatile, temporary publications which do not serve a functional market.

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Official discourse on Intercultural

education in Greece

“ Law 2413/96”.

The establishment of an “ Office of Intercultural Education” within the Ministry of Education, and the afore mentioned law , entitled "The education of Greek people abroad and the intercultural education" (2413/1996), represents the first official recognition by Greek authorities that diverse communities has specific educational needs.

It is the first time that the Greek policy sets aside the assimilation approach and establishes the intercultural approach.

The Law consists of 11 chapters , of which only one refers to intercultural education in Greece. More specifically , the legislators propose the establishment of

‘INTERCULTURAL SCHOOLS”. These are to be a new type of school to be attended by mostly repatriated greeks and foreign immigrants ( Paleologou, 2004)[1].

[1] Paleologou(2004):”Intercultural Education and practice in Greece: needs for bilingual intercultural programmes” Intercultural Education vol.15, No.3, September 2004

The aim of the law 2413 is the promotion only of the Greek cultural identity, the advancement of the Greek language, Greek and orthodoxical tradition and not the advancement of multiculturalism

This law has some contradictions.. As indicated by its title, it consists of two parts.

The first part is big and arranges the issues of Greek education abroad and

the second part concerns intercultural education and it is very small in comparison with the first. According to the law, intercultural education does not concern all pupils but only the pupils "with educational, social and cultural particularities".

This however is against the real meaning of intercultural education. A really intercultural education embraces all children and encourages their interaction.

[1] article 34 of L. 2413/1996 PROVIDES ADAPTATION OF THE MAINSTREAM CURRICULUM in special schools or classes of intercultural education in order to facilitate an intercultural approach and to account for the special social , cultural and learning situation of a multicultural environment

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Nowadays they operate more than 35 intercultural (elementary and secondary) schools in Greece which are attended both by Greek pupils and by first- or second-generation immigrant pupils

.

There is no quota for the attendance pertaining to these categories.

In effect, the so-called “intercultural education” aims at the one-way teaching about the “other” , as no special courses on language or culture are available.

Foreign pupils have to know about the language and the dominant Greek culture, which is indeed necessary for the process of their social integration.

By contrast, there is a total absence of instruction in their own language and on their religion or even on the existence of their culture to them and the Greek pupils.

This discriminatory situation creates a division of cultural values and an axiomatic prevalence of the dominant Greek over the immigrant cultures. (Tsitselikis, 2005)

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Further legislation , put forward by Greek Minisrtry of Education of Greek Diaspora and Intercultural Education at the GMER , and one of the legislators has recently commented that the “ GMER attempts to ‘ open new roads’ through these programs “. He was also emphasized that the Ministry is commited to :

Adding an intercultural dimension to the educational system ;

Helping students enjoy to their utmost the opportunities education offers so that later on they may participate actively in the society , while at the same time maintaining their own cultural identity;

Promote exchange among students to bring to the surface the special and significant cultural elements they carry with them and thus enrich their knowledge and experience through a constant process of interaction – a form of ‘ communicating vessels’.

To address an indifference toward minority populations in primary and secondary schools, teachers can earn a 50 percent salary increase to teach in "minority" schools, but they must be bilingual and few teachers in Greece have developed language skills in the languages spoken by this population.

The researcher for Greek case ( Nikos Gousgounis) feels that the educational system should "turn from its 'introverted' orientation to a more 'extraverted' one".

There are also pressures to adopt a model of "coexistence" of multiple cultures.

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curriculum and school

activities

Ways in which the curriculum reflects intercultural education include:

interdisciplinary methodology within subjects like history, heography, literature and second or third language in all secondary school s and partly in the elementary school

an optional ( frre) curriculum zone where various topics can be discussed , including European identity, multiculturalism

reducing ethnocentrism in curricula and textbooks . This work is done by the Pedagogical Instintute and the Instintute for Greek Diaspora Education and Intercultural Studies

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teacher training

Intercultural education is incorporated in the canon of some University Departments responsible for initial primary and secondary school teacher training . In – service training seminars are also organised by agents of the Ministry of Education for teachers involved in programs of intercultural education ( on a mandatory basis ) or for teachers interested in the topic[1].

[1] ‘Integrating immigrant children into schools in Europe”, Greece (

National description -2003/2004), Eurydice , the Information Network on Education in Europe

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Education and training opportunities for adult

immigrants :

The general inclination is to provide

immigrants with an education that respects

their social, religious and cultural

particularities in combination with an

essential Greek language competence . This

effort started in Greece by offering Vocational

training ( department of Labour ministry (

OAED ) in addition to the GreeK Language

adequate knowledge .

The General Secretariat for Adult Education (

G.SA.E.) – Ministry of Education

G.S.A.E. has been developing projects focusing in race equality aspects since 1983, starting with Roma.

Other groups included ethnically Greek political refugees from ex-communist ( 1983 -1986), repatriated Greeks from the former Soviet Union ( 1986 -2000), and repatriated Greek Alabanians from 1991.

Further more since 1990s were developed as well as immigrants from ex-communist countries and refugees from Palestine and Pakistan.

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There is currently a strong demand for educational practice that addresses adequately the multicultural world in which people live. Social inclusion and justice demands such a development and there are many attempts being made with the cooperation of the European Union and the Greek government to address this issue.

There are a lot of governmental (etc municipality institutes) and non-governmental (NGOs, private attempts, social centers). One of these initiatives was a training programme for unemployed refugees, immigrant and ‘repatriated’ Pontians, that Center of Vocational Training implement in Athens, Thessaloniki, etc. The intention of the organizers was to ensure social integration as quickly as possible and under the best conditions for the target group.

The philosophy of the programme espoused the term ‘integration’ - instead of the terms 'assimilation' and 'adaptation' - with a dynamic dimension working both with the target group and the community. The aim of the programme was the smooth and immediate social integration of refugees, immigrant and ‘repatriated’ Pontians in the current socioeconomic and cultural life of Greece.

Training initiatives

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The target of the programme was to provide the total and valid information for the population dealing with key elements, like administration and such functions of the Greek state, as education, health, housing, social welfare, labour market, etc.

The scientific outcomes and experience from the fields of social sciences show that many of the apparent barriers are due to ignorance of cultural or religious differences rather than a rejection of all the above.

This ignorance, combined with the likelihood that many people have never experienced a close relationship with anyone outside their own culture, tends to widen the intercultural communication gap.

Efforts that focus on the official level are not sufficient. There is now widespread recognition by the official government that much work has to be done at a citizen level in order for official efforts to be successful.

In conclusion

Education and language skills unsurprisingly present an array of problems.

In Greece, there are clear expressions of ‘structural exclusion’ exhibited by institutions

the lack of state provision for Greek language acquisition by recent migrants,

the general school system’s modus operandi, and its refusal to provide IMLI [1] or make other accommodations for immigrant children.

[1] Immigrant Minority Language Instruction

Education and language skills

suggestions

Access to all levels of schooling, regardless of parental status, is essential. Special classes in Greek language acquisition are needed for most immigrant children, and IMLI[1] is desirable for children to be able to migrate to their country of nationality, even if they were not born there. The success rates of migrant children (adjusted for socio-economic class) are central in evaluating integration progress. Other issues, for adults, include recognition of foreign school certificates, diplomas and degrees (by DIKATSA); and access to higher education. For all of these issues, structural patterns of state bureaucracy may impact very differently on different migrant groups: for example, some migrant groups’ families may provide better quality help with children’s homework, leaving others at a disadvantage.

[1] Immigrant Minority Language Instruction

Thank you for your attention!