{"id":7276,"date":"2026-05-25T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7276"},"modified":"2026-05-25T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:45:00","slug":"sophia-zacharaki-on-demographics-it-directly-affects-education-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7276","title":{"rendered":"Sophia Zacharaki on demographics: It directly affects education policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Numerical data highlighting that demographics directly affects education and education policy was presented by <b>Sofia Zacharaki<\/b>, at the &#8220;Demographics 2026&#8221; conference.<\/p>\n<p>During the discussion, the <b>Minister of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports<\/b> noted that the enrolment in first grade for 2026 was 70,000, while in 2016 the corresponding figure was 100,000. &#8220;Our goal is to be able to better forecast our needs so that we can start the year more smoothly,&#8221; he said, noting that the ministry should, by studying the demographics and demographic trends, ensure not only the timely staffing of schools, but also the <b>operation of schools in inaccessible places, on islands, in villages or even in the centre of Athens<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The demographic and the education are now inextricably linked, as the country&#8217;s population evolution directly influences the design of the school of the future,&#8221; he argued.<\/p>\n<p>The minister stressed that <b>substantial interventions<\/b> are needed to upgrade the quality of education, including staffing schools with teachers, improving infrastructure, the Digital Tutoring Centre, new curricula and teacher training. In the same context, she e<b>mentioned the National Dialogue that will result in a new design for the high school and the skills and knowledge it will provide for children.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Zacharaki noted that the <b>Public-Private Sector Partnership<\/b> is very important for the achievement of the goals set by the state and made special reference to the Marietta Giannakou programme<\/a>, through which some 2,500 renovated school units will be delivered by 2028 throughout the country.<\/p>\n<h2>Digital platform &#8220;Dipla&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>In addition, he announced the activation of a special digital platform, called &#8220;Dipla&#8221;, through which there will be <b>direct and detailed recording of the needs of public schools, enabling individuals, businesses and institutions to contribute in a targeted manner to the improvement of infrastructure.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The state should never stop supporting the public subsidy for teachers, for books, so that it can make a safer and thus brighter environment for children and parents and teachers,&#8221; he said, adding that private initiative to help the state is a <b>&#8220;very important piece of a puzzle that means: A state that cares for its citizen, wherever he\/she lives.&#8221;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Finally, the Minister of Education spoke about the <b>children&#8217;s mental health support network<\/b>, noting that there is already a platform for reporting incidents of <b>bullying<\/b> and there has been an increase in the number of social workers and psychologists in schools, As she pointed out on the issues of domestic violence and mental health, &#8220;the big changes start from Primary Education&#8221; in terms of knowledge, attitudes and social skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The numerical data that underline that demography directly affects education and educational policy were presented by Sophia Zacharaki, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}