Training Needs Analysis of Teachers in Multigrade schools in Greece
University of the Aegean
Training Needs Analysis of Teachers in Multigrade schools in Greece
Report for MUSE project
1. Introduction
This report, written for the MUSE project, is based on a study conducted in the years 2000-2001 and a new research conducted in 2002 and 2003 that concerns headmasters and teachers in multigrade schools from all over Greece. The results of the study have been analysed during the MUSE project period in order to address the analysis of the training needs of teachers in multigrade schools in Greece, which is one of the components of the MUSE study.
2. A brief presentation of Greece’s educational system
The general guidelines of the Greek educational system are defined below:
Primary Education includes pre school education and primary school (6 years)
Secondary Education includes gymnasium (3 years) and Lyceum (3 years)
Tertiary education that includes Universities (4-6 years) and Technological institutions (3-4 years)
Attendance is compulsory for the 9 years that correspond to primary school and gymnasium.
In reference to primary education, the curriculum of subjects that should be taught is common nationwide and is determined by the ministry of Education. Students enroll in Primary School in the 6th year of their life. In all six grades, among other modules, the following are taught: Greek Language, mathematics, History, religion, physics, chemistry, geography, study of environment, civil education, music, art education and physical exercise. From the third grade, the study of a foreign language is also included in the timetable.
Weekly Timetable of a Six Grade “Standard” Primary School
Grades
Subjects
/ Α / Β / C / D / E / FReligion us / - / - / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2
Language / 9 / 9 / 9 / 9 / 8 / 8
Mathematics / 5 / 5 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4
History / - / - / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2
Environment Study / 4 / 4 / 3 / 3 / - / -
Geography / - / - / - / - / 1 / 1
Physics / - / - / - / - / 3 / 3
Social & Political Educ. / - / - / - / - / 1 / 1
Aesthetics / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 2 / 2
School Life / 1 / 1 / - / - / - / -
English / - / - / - / 3 / 3 / 3
Physical Education / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2
Total Number of Hours / 25 / 25 / 26 / 29 / 28 / 28
Table 1. Weekly Timetable of a Six Grade Primary School
The number of teachers employed in each school depends on the number of students per class. The limit number in each grade is 25 students. If there are more (even if that is 26), the class is divided into two (with 13 persons each), with two teachers. If the total amount of teachers is greater than 6, then specialized personnel joins also the school. The specialized personnel teaches music, physical exercise and foreign language.
If the school has less than 6 teachers, then the headmaster teaches a class too. In schools with more than 6 teachers the headmaster has very few, if any, teaching duties. He/She is then concentrated in purely administrative work and liasing between the school and local authorities. This kind of job is time-consuming but also very important, particularly since local authorities are responsible for schools’ maintenance and finances. Finally, according to the needs, it is possible for a school to employ a teacher responsible for students with learning difficulties or/and for foreign students.
3. Multigrade schools in Greece
Multi grade schools are an exception of the system described above: there is a different policy and infrastructure that applies for them. Multi-grade and single teacher schools[1] in Greece are a necessity mainly due to the country’s specific geographic configuration. There are many mountainous regions and a large number of small islands in the country. In the past, historical reasons had forced the population to live in areas of difficult access, scattered in a great number of small and isolated villages that were located either deeply in the mainland, or in small islands. Even though nowadays, there is a change in the demographic dispersion, due to urbanisation, there is still a significant percentage of the population that lives in regions with characteristics described above. This creates the need for the operation of schools in small villages, even with a very small number of students and even when the conditions do not provide the ideal educational environment.
Sustaining a large number of multi-grade schools is a difficult task. The problems that arise can be epitomized in two categories, (a) financial and (b) educational. (a) The state tries to provide the necessary economic means in order to keep schools fully equipped and in an acceptable operational condition, without being always successful. (b) There must be adaptations in the curriculum; in order to fit in the way teaching is conducted in multi-grade schools. These adaptations lead to the justified belief that the quality of the provided education is inferior, compared to the quality of education in the rest of the schools.
3.1. Extend of multigrade schools in Greece
Out of 5800 elementary schools in Greece, 2558 have five or less teachers, i.e. at least one less than the number of grades. Around 1800 schools have one or two teachers. More than 1300 schools operate with less than 20 students (table 2). This means that more than 40% of the elementary schools in Greece are multi-grade and with a small number of students. According to the relative legislation as already mentioned, a class can be split in two if it has more than 25 students. The same applies for a school as a whole: if a school has less than 25 students in total, it operates with only one teacher, regardless of the number of grades that he/she has to teach. If the school has up to 50 students, a second teacher can be appointed and so on. Statistically the situation is not as bad since these limits are rarely met and the numbers of pupils per teacher are less than the above.
Total Number of schools in Greece / 5.881Total Number of multigrade Schools / 2.558
Percentage of Multigrade schools in Greece / 43,5 %
Grade of schools / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
Schools per grade / 935 / 871 / 534 / 138 / 80
Percentage of each grade / 15,9 / 14,8 / 9,1 / 2,3 / 1,4
Number of teachers / 935 / 1742 / 1602 / 562 / 400
Number of students / 8187 / 22247 / 19534 / 7602 / 4127
Table 2. General statistical data for multigrade schools in Greece[2]
3.2. General organisation scheme of multigrade schools
Not all multigrade schools are similar. There is a possibility that in a small school, a grade is missing, simply because there are no pupils to attend. It is also likely that a multi-grade school has one teacher teaching up to six grades, two teachers each one having to teach in up to three grades, three teachers each one having to teach in up to two grades, four teachers with some of them teaching two grades and, finally, five teachers with one of them teaching two grades.
There is also a certain way that grades are allocated to each teacher:
· In the case of two teachers, one teaches grades 1, 3 and 4 and the other grades 2, 5 and 6.
· In the case of three teachers, one teaches grades 1 and 2, the other grades 3 and 4 and the third grades 5 and 6.
· In case of four and five teachers, care is taken so that the first and second grades are taught separately.
It is not an unusual situation for a pupil to attend a next grades’ curriculum first and in the subsequent year to be taught the lessons of the previous grade.
The approach adopted in general is that when the teacher teaches one grade, the rest of the pupils work by themselves or in groups (table 3). Due to the small number of pupils, the most common instructional method is cooperative learning, mixed with elements of self- learning. Working hours are extended and some of the breaks are skipped so that more teaching time is gained, though the truth is that in these cases, no matter the effort, the teacher spends less teaching time per grade, than in an ordinary school. Another method is to use peer teaching, with one or two of the best students acting as teaching assistants.
Weekly timetable for a Single-teacher Primary SchoolSubjects / General Group Teaching
A΄, B΄, C΄, D΄, E, F / Grades A – B / Grades C – D / Grades E – F / Group Teaching
C, D, E, F / Total
A / B / Group
A - B / C / D / Group
C – D / E / F / Group
E – F
Religion / - / - / - / - / - / - / ½ / - / - / ½ / - / 1
Language / - / 6/2 / 6/2 / - / - / - / 6/2 / - / - / 6/2 / - / 12
Mathematics / - / 3/2 / 3/2 / - / 3/2 / 3/2 / - / 3/2 / 3/2 / - / - / 9
History / - / - / - / - / - / - / 1/2 / - / - / ½ / - / 1
Study of Environment / - / 2/2 / 2/2 / - / - / - / 2/2 / - / - / - / - / 3
Geography / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / ½ / - / ½
Physics / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / 2/2 / - / 1
Social and Political Education / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / ½ / - / ½
Arts / - / - / - / ½ / - / - / - / - / - / - / ½ / 1
Physical Education / 2/2 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / 1
Total / 1 / 5
1/2 / 5
1/2 / 1/2 / 1
1/2 / 1
1/2 / 5 / 1
1/2 / 1
1/2 / 6 / 1/2 / 30
Note: Arts are assigned as silent work to pupils
Table 3. Weekly timetable for a Single-teacher Primary School
In multigrade schools, usually there is no headmaster but a teacher “acting as headmaster”, playing a double role, that of a manager and that of a teacher. This means that besides teaching duties, multigrade schoolteachers have a great deal of administrative work.
3.3. Problems related to multigrade schools
Given the above-described difficulties, one would expect that the state would employ skilful and experienced teachers for multi-grade schools. This is not the case:
· The vast majority of them are newly appointed or on contract (not permanent job).
· They have very little experience, if any, and they are not trained for multi-grade teaching. Studies for multi-grade schools are not included in the academic courses of nearly all Greek Universities
· No specific or very limited in-service training is provided for multi-grade schoolteachers.
· In multigrade schools with one teacher, since there is no help from any colleague, the teacher has to face any arising problem alone.
Finally, apart from the fact that by teaching in a multigrade school the teacher gets (the hard way) valuable teaching experience, there are very few incentives that may motivate a teacher to work in a multi-grade school. The most important of these incentives is the fact that they get more credit points within the context of a point system that forms the basis for teachers’ evaluation. These points help the teachers to have a choice later in their career mainly when transferred from one school to another.
Nowadays, there is a tendency to reduce the number of multi-grade schools. The most common practice is to merge neighbouring schools, providing transportation to pupils on a daily basis to a main village in a “hub” or “centre” school. But mergence:
(a) is not a choice of the inhabitants of the small villages and
(b) does not exist as an option in the case of small islands where there is only one school.
Moreover, mergence is strongly opposed by the residents, who consider the school, together with the local church, to be the traditional cornerstones of the village’s cultural and social life. They believe that if the school stops operating then the status of the village will be reduced and this will negatively affect its future. Their point is that a school is always a vivid cell and a vehicle of civilization that helps keeping the local population in place, reducing depopulation.
The usual situation is that multigrade schools are ignored, or assumed to be non-problematic, or problematic with non-resolvable problems, or unimportant, or marginal. Bibliography on schooling in developed and developing countries implicitly assumes that schools are monograde. Rarely one finds specialized programmes and implementation methodologies referring to such schools and also rare is research on this issue. The University Departments of Education, which are institutions that deal with the development of educational models, methodologies and approaches, concentrate, almost exclusively, in monograde schools. National school curricula do not refer separately to multigrade schools.
4. Analysis of Teachers’ Needs
The research that was conducted with the aim (a) to provide a clear impression of the teacher's notion about multigrade school and (b) to determine the teachers’ needs and expectations from such schools has followed two phases:
During the first phase of the research, multigrade schoolteachers participating in the project SXEDIA were interviewed.
During the second phase, under the MUSE Project, a questionnaire was developed and sent to 900 multi grade schools in Greece. It was found that more than 100 of them are shut down, due to lack of students. From the remaining 800, 200 had replied up to now. The questionnaires were statistically analysed and the results seem to support the results of the interviews.
4.1. Infrastructures of multigrade schools
The average age of multigrade school buildings is approximately 50 years old and re-innovation in them is scarce. The oldest building was 133 years old, with all the consequential problems in the building condition. Less than half of the buildings have a spare or auxiliary room. Despite their age, schools’ condition is characterized from mediocre to good. The most intense problem appears to be in the W.C's .