ATHENS:
Greece will hire hundreds of extra teachers to help thousands of
migrant children join its public schools in the autumn, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday.
“The inclusion of all refugee
children in the public
school system will begin in September,” Tsipras said in a televised address.
“Around 800 backup teachers will be hired to meet the additional needs” of the new academic year, he said. Authorities have **t given precise figures on how many refugee and
migrant children are expected to enrol.
But out of over 57,000 people -- mainly
from Syria -- trapped in
Greece by the closure of borders further **rth before spring, around a third are estimated to be mi**rs.
At a meeting with Education Minister Nikos Filis on Wednesday, Athens Mayor Yiorgos Kaminis put the number of eligible mi**rs at 22,000. Filis said his services were “prepared to enrol thousands of refugee children.”
The
children will be taught Greek and a**ther language of their choice, he said. A**ther government source said mathematics will also be on the curriculum.
“This is an introductory year,” the source said. Filis **ted that refugee and
migrant children will initially be schooled separately as the integration process will take time.
“Initially separate reception classes will be set up at many schools, and gradually, it will be possible to fully integrate the children,” Filis said.
“We will try to soon have Greek and refugee
children together in schools,” he said.
children too distant
from cities will be schooled inside their
migrant camps, the minister said.
According to the NGO Save the Children, which has warned of the risk of a lost generation, the refugee
children stuck in camps in
Greece on average have **t been in
school for a year and a half.
And more than a fifth of school-age
children have never set foot in a classroom. The refugee population in
Greece is very mixed and still very unsettled, and the country’s education system is underfunded after six years of budget austerity.
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