The report has been developed as part of OECD’s Reviews of National Policies for Education, undertaken by the Policy Advice and Implementation Division led by Paulo Santiago within the Directorate for Education and Skills. The OECD review team for Greece was composed of Beatriz Pont as team leader, Andrew Macintyre as project co-ordinator from the OECD Secretariat and Janet Looney (European Institute of Education and Social Policy, Paris), Jan Herczyński (Poland), Roger Smyth (New Zealand) and Fani Stylianidou (Greece) (Annex A). The team reviewed selected data provided by the country, undertook research and three OECD review visits to Greece, and took part in many exchanges and consultations with experts and stakeholders both in Greece and beyond.
The report has a special background: it is part of a request by the Government of Greece and the European Commission Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS) that aligns to the Memorandum of Understanding concluded between Greece and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in August 2015. It also forms part of the work that the OECD has undertaken under the OECD-Greece Joint Steering Committee, established in March 2015.
The OECD review team is indebted to a large number of people and institutions involved. The Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs and Government provided contributions and support. In particular, Minister of Education, Research and Religious Affairs Kostas Gavroglu and his team including Secretary-General Georgios Aggelopoulos and national co-ordinators Yiannis Roussakis and Pantelis Kyprianos provided support, information and materials for the review and the review visits, Dimitra Makatsori and the Greek Delegate to the OECD Education Policy Committee, Katerina Trimi-Kyrou. Svetoslav Danchev, Head of the Microeconomics Analysis and Policy Department at the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (ΙΟΒΕ) generously shared with the team the data he had compiled for the IOBE review of higher education in Greece.
The European Commission made a significant contribution. The SRSS supported the review, and other European Commission representatives contributed throughout the review in meetings, webinars and providing guidance, expertise and comments, including Geraldine Mahieu and Theodora Giouroukou from the Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS), Ulrike Pisiotis from the Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (EAC) and Christos Gofas from the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN).
At the OECD, support and guidance has also been provided by the OECD Office of the Secretary-General and in particular Gabriela Ramos, OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa, Mario López-Roldán, Kostas Panagiotopoulos and Foivi Vlastou Dimopoulou. Mauro Pisu and Tim Bulman in the Economics Department provided valuable input and exchanges on a wide range of issues, as did Federica Maiorano in the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs.
In the Directorate for Education and Skills valuable feedback on earlier drafts of the report were provided by a range of people: Director Andreas Schleicher, Deputy Director Montserrat Gomendio, Paulo Santiago, Head of the Education Policy Advice and Implementation Division, as well as Etienne Albiser, Lucie Cernie, Pierre Gouëdard, David Liebowitz, Pauline Musset, Claire Shewbridge, Roland Tusz and Hannah Von Ahlefeld. Romane Viennet contributed the section on refugee education in Chapter 3, Marta Rilling provided administrative support throughout the project and co-ordinated the publication production, and Cécile Bily oversaw resource management support.