WRITTEN QUESTION P-3977/97 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (PPE) to the Commission (9 December 1997)

Subject: Funding of makeshift plans drawn up by the Greek Ministry of Education

Under the Second CSF for Greece, this country was to receive a sum of the order of DR 440 billion to cover educational needs and in particular to promote innovatory programmes intended to strengthen the feeble technical and material infrastructure, to set up a network of libraries, to promote post-graduate studies and to bring data-processing centre stage. So far most of these innovate plans have made little progress and the take-up rate until recently was approximately 25%. These programmes have now been simplified to speed up the take-up rate.

However, it is one thing for the European Union to adopt more conventional programmes and quite another for it to fund inadmissible experiments by the Greek Ministry of Education. According to my information, the Ministry of Education is asking the Commission:

- to fund the writing of new books which have been commissioned from the authors directly, without any competition being held and in breach of the rules of competition;

- to back the vague notion of 'Uniform Secondary School' with a sum of some DR 100 billion, as if this were the principal problem facing Greek education, when even the problem of double shifts has yet to be resolved;

- to entrust the management of this programme to the universities - it is not stipulated how - with some 5-10% being allocated to institutes of higher education as management costs.

Since education in Greece deserves better treatment, will the Commission say which programmes have not been progressing satisfactorily so far, what is the present take-up rate for Ministry of Education programmes, where else universities manage funds for secondary education and which of the ideas put forward by the Ministry of Education it intends to fund and with what level of funding?

Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission (24 February 1998)

One action in the operational programme 'Education and initial training' of the Community support framework for Greece refers indeed to the development of new curricula and writing of new textbooks with a budget of about 32 MECU foreseen for this purpose. The operation as approved envisages that both those who would work for the development of the new curricula and the authors of the new textbooks would be selected through open calls for tenders. The ministry of Education has recently confirmed the above and explained that the open procedures were not followed only in cases which concerned the modification of existing textbooks, for which copyright is still in force.

Following the introduction of the integrated lyceum, the ministry explained that the above action will have to be reviewed, since the whole structure of the upper secondary education changes, including some curricula and textbooks. More detailed proposals are awaited.

Last November, the ministry of Education asked to modify the first sub-programme (secondary education) of the above programme, in order to support the integrated lyceum. The Commission has in principle agreed to this, with a view to supporting this new type of lyceum and accelerating overall implementation.

More detailed proposals, including financial information, on the basis of which further decisions will be made by the monitoring committee, are awaited. The Commission will examine the detailed proposals when they are submitted.

The ministry of Education has proposed to use universities and technological institutes as intermediary agencies, since, in the existing system, school units cannot be directly involved in implementation. At the last meeting of the monitoring committee, the higher education institutions expressed a reserve on this. The ministry is examining the implementation structures and mechanisms, which will constitute part of the awaited detailed proposal.

The absorption rate of the operational programme 'Education and Initial Training' amounts to about 27%, whereas that of sub-programmes 1 (secondary education), 2 (initial training), 3 (higher education) and 4 (modernisation of the administration of the educational system and technical assistance) are in the region of 17%, 42%, 15.5% and 13% respectively (payments of the Member State as percentages of the overall budget of the programme).

Apart from the actions addressed directly to universities and technological institutes, tertiary education institutions participate also in the implementation of other actions for secondary education, as for example 'information technologies' and 'education of students of special categories (minorities, immigrants, repatriated)'. In the above examples, universities are used both as intermediary and implementing agencies. They will be paid on the basis of incurred expenditure and relevant justifying documents and not on percentages of the budgets of the actions or lump sum allowances.