According to the newspaper «Ethnos,» as Kostas Gavroglou stated during a meeting he had the day before yesterday with the leadership of the Greek Teachers’ Federation (DOE), the number of appointments—which are intended to begin in the 2019–20 school year, although this depends on when the new hiring system is implemented.
It should be noted that teachers claim that schools are currently short about 23,000 – 24,000 teachers are currently missing from schools, while recent education ministers spoke of 20,000 appointments over a three-year period.
The issue that must first be resolved, however, is the system under which these appointments will be made, as the previous system—which allocated 60 percent of positions to successful candidates from previous ASEP exams and 40 percent to substitute teachers—has been ruled unconstitutional by the Council of State.
The new unified recruitment system, based on the Council of State’s decision, must be aligned with the ASEP’s review procedures; in other words, appointments must be made under the auspices of that body. Whether appointments will be based on a points system—which is the most likely scenario—or whether a new ASEP competitive examination will be held—which is less likely due to high costs—has not yet been decided.
Kostas Gavroglou, however, told the teachers that the ministry’s intention is to develop
the proposal for the system, with the participation of their collective bodies, which are called upon to submit their proposals in accordance with the logic of the ASEP system, using criteria beyond just a degree and prior work experience, while the decision on whether or not to hold a writtenwill be decided by the government in due course. When asked whether the government intends to adopt recent OECD proposals, such as five-year contracts for substitute teachers, the Minister of Education replied that this has already been ruled out.
According to PAME educators, Mr. Gavroglou informed them that 123,000 applications were submitted this year for substitute—hourly-paid substitute teachers—and that the ministry has registered 35,000 teachers who have at least one year of prior teaching experience at any point in their careers.
