Not all children have access to pre-primary education in Greece

Pre-primary education helps ensure the all-round development of a child, i.e. cognitive, emotional and psychokinetic development. Not only do pre-school age experiences affect children’s subsequent school performance, but they also affect their whole lives.

Pre-primary education in Greece is provided in the form of care and hosting services for infants and children with or without disabilities by infant and childcare centres and children’s creativity centres included in the NSRF programme ‘Harmonising family and professional lives’. In the 2015-2016 school year, however, the above services were provided only to 81 000 infants and children, whereas the number of children not included in the above programme was high, as 25 800 children were not able to register in a childcare centre.

On the island of Crete alone, 2 304 children, i.e. one out of three, will not be provided with care and hosting services by childcare and children’s creativity centres.

Given the above, I would like to ask the Commission:

What measures does the Commission intend to implement to enable all children to have access to pre-primary education in Greece?

Source: European Parliament

Answer given by Ms Thyssen

on behalf of the Commission

In the 2015 Education and Training Monitor the Commission underlines that in Greece “participation of 4-6 year-olds in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is low. In 2013, 76.4% of children in that age group took part in ECEC, compared to an EU average of 93.1%. A significant increase (9.1 percentage points) in participation rates was recorded between 2008 and 2012. However, in 2012, only 55.6% of 4 year-olds took part in pre-primary education, compared to an EU average of 86.7%. (More on: http://ec.europa.eu/education/tools/docs/2015/monitor2015-greece_en.pdf)

In the field of education, the EU supports and complements national policies, among others, through the co-financed Operational Programmes. For the programming periods 2007-13 (OP “Human Resources Development”) and 2014-20 (OP “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning” and the Regional OPs) , it was agreed that a budget of approximately EUR 690 million and EUR 490 million respectively from the European Social Fund, would be allocated to the project “Reconciliation of Professional and Family Life” which include the provision of childcare facilities contributing to achieving the targets set in the Barcelona Objectives. It should be noted that the responsibility for the design and implementation of national policy measures rests with the Member State.

Source: European Parliament