Greece’s public education system is set to introduce the well-known International Baccalaureate (IB) program over the coming period, with a relevant draft bill ready for tabling in Parliament for debate and a subsequent vote.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred to the IB prospect on Monday, addressing Cabinet members in the last scheduled ministerial meeting of the year. In detailing the initiative, he said the IB program will first be implemented in a select number of pilot high schools in the country, while gradually being made available in all secondary schools.
Making the Geneva-based IB program available in public schools in Greece has been a long-time goal of at least several Greek governments, although sharp opposition had been expressed in the past by private schools offering the program in the country, as well as by certain quarters of the public sector education community.
Mitsotakis said enrollment in the IB program is voluntary and recalled that graduates of the latter attain a type of “mini passport”, as he said, to some of the best universities in the world.
No information was given, at this point, on the cost of the IB program to be offered in Greece’s public high schools.
In a separate comment, Mitsotakis also referred to the long-delayed relocation of the Korydallos penitentiary, located in the same-name working class district southwest of downtown Athens, to outside the greater Athens-Piraeus agglomeration.
He merely noted that the project has finally be included in an eminent domain framework.
