First LOOP Policy Seminar in Greece!

The first LOOP Greek Policy Seminar, in which was presented the LOOP Policy Brief 1, held on  July 8, 2022 at Cotsen Hall, Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies, Athens. The presentation of the policy brief took place in the context of a broader round table entitled “Next Generation Europe” which was attended by participants in person and remotely. The round table was attended by 50 stakeholders in-person and 70 ones virtually. Among the participants were Alexandros Koptsis, General Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Ioannis Antoniou, President of the IEP and Michael Teutsch, head of unit, schools and multilingualism, directorate-general for education, youth, sport and culture of the European Commission.

The opinions and the recommendations of participants on findings included in the Policy Brief 1 are the followings:

The participants found the recommendations concerning the three dimensions that constitute the scope of this Policy Brief absolutely adequate, namely Teachers’ Career, Induction Programmes and Mentors’ Capacity Programmes. They noticed the high relevance of these recommendations and their completeness.

In principle, participants found the overall design and structure of LOOP very concrete and the focus on the three dimensions very important and accurate. Particularly important for the participants was the correlation between the inductive and mentoring programme and the active role of school directors in this prosses.

Participants acknowledged the positive impact that the piloting of the inductive and mentors programme can have in a first level and the subsequent adoption by the state of desirable, appropriate and tested policies related to teachers‘ careers, induction and mentoring porgrammes. The participants stressed the importance of the 3nd dimension (Mentors’ Capacity Programmes) and its potential positive impact, since in Greece there are only informal forms of mentoring and it is very important, as they pointed out, on the occasion that the new law (law 4823/2021) come in force, Mentor Programmes must take a systematic formal form in which experienced teachers and school directors will have an important role to play.

As far as the political approval and Implementation After Loop Experimentation is concerned,  it was very important that the meeting was attended, among others, by the Secretary General of the Greek Ministry of Education, who expressed an interest in being  fully informed about the LOOP programme so that critical aspects of it could be examined and adopted.

To read more on the first Policy Brief, visit the link below:

https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policy_brief_1_D4.1_10052.pdf