How Functional are Greek Teaching Programs? Teacher Training and Job Placement in Greece’s Most Struggling Profession

This paper examines teacher training in Greece and discusses whether Greek teacher training programs consider a functionalist approach to education. In other words, are Greek teacher training programs producing more teachers than the Greek school system and Greek society requires? If so, what steps have the Greek Ministry of Education taken to assure that teachers find work after completing their teacher training programs? Regardless of the student’s achievement on national examinations, entry to teacher programs at the university level in Greece is primarily determined by the number of available places. In the last few decades there have been more teachers trained in Greece than the number of teacher jobs available. This paper is dived into several sections. It begins by discussing a functionalist perspective on education and how it applies to Greece, it follows by discussing past and current trends in education and teacher training in Greece, it then looks at teacher job placemen in Greece, and concludes with possible solutions to a saturated teacher labor market in Greece.