Modernisation for whom? Reading Greece’s foreign-language reform

I recently came across the latest issue of the ECML’s European Language Gazette (No. 77), which carries a short report on foreign language teaching in Greece. This three-page unsigned document, which reads less like an analysis and more like a statement of policy direction, claims that Greece is undertaking a coordinated, “system-wide modernisation” of foreign language education, from kindergarten to High School. I found this quite surprising, since such a modernisation has escaped my attention so far, despite my somewhat substantial involvement in language education in Greece.

Unlike much policy discourse about education in Greece, the report contains several reasonable announcements. But, as I often tell my students, we should read such documents primarily with an eye on what they leave unsaid. What I want to do, then, in this post is to take a critical look at five of those silences: (a) what the reform means by ‘multilingualism’; (b) how it approaches artificial intelligence; (c) the evidence behind early English; (d) the relationship between teaching materials and curricula; and (e) what role the reform envisages for language teachers.

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and all that. Let’s read on.

What the reform proposes

Let us begin with what the reform supposedly involves. According to the report, there are three broad aims:

• to shift classroom practice towards communicative, learner-centred outcomes (expressed as Can-Do descriptors);
• to align curricula with the CEFR and its 2020 Companion Volume; and
• to integrate digital competences and “responsible AI” into language teaching.

Having made these statements, the report walks readers through the system step by step. English, the anonymous author reminds us, has been part of early childhood curriculum in Greek kindergartens since 2021–22. In the first two grades of primary school, a set of materials for early English (PEAP) supposedly provides the foundation for ELT. Then, from Grade 3 of primary school to the end of compulsory secondary education, students supposedly follow the Unified Curriculum for Foreign Languages.¹ This has been in force since 2016–17, and we are now told that it is being updated. Academic high schools received a new curriculum in 2023, linked to the EU’s DigComp framework, while vocational schools (EPAL) continue to follow their existing programmes.

The report also mentions a range of impressive initiatives, including a digital library of open educational resources, AI pilots in 2025–26, a Ministerial Decision on AI in education issued in May 2026, a cascade model of teacher development, and a timetable that points to full implementation in 2027–28.

Words, words, words...

Five concerns with the language education reform in Greece

Multilingualism, in one language

One of the most bizarre claims in the report is that kindergarten English actually supports children’s “multilingual awareness and intercultural communication”. This is an odd claim, considering that the only additional language the report describes for the early years, and the first four years of primary school, is English. The claim is, in other words, that we can foster greater multilingual awareness among students by adding, in schools across the entire country, a compulsory, uniform English language component to Greek monolingualism.

This is where we have to ask what is missing from the report’s prose. In every Greek classroom, we find many children who bring other languages from home: the languages of migration, of minority communities, of families who have moved between countries.² None of these languages appears in the report, and neither does plurilingual competence. Aggressive suppression of linguistic diversity is not a new feature in the Greek education system, but it is difficult to see how such a policy could align with the plurilingual direction that the CEFR Companion Volume (cited in the report as a reference point of the reform), places at its centre.

This is a reform towards exclusionary bilingualism.

What this is, ultimately, is a reform that speaks the language of multilingualism while organising itself around the ‘Greek plus English’ exclusionary bilingualism. Whether this is a defensible policy choice is a debatable point, and I will neither concede nor debate it here. But I would expect that the authors of this policy at least name it for what it is, rather than insult readers’ intelligence by framing it as ‘multilingual’ education.

PEAP: A foundation without evidence

Another point about which I am deeply sceptical is the confidence the authors place in the success of the early English provision. This is important because early English is not just the most visible and politically popular part of the reform, but also the part that commits the most children, at the youngest age, to a single language.

The report describes the materials developed in the PEAP project, which introduced English to the first two years of primary school, as a foundation for language learning. Although these materials have been in use for several years now, the report offers no independently verified evidence for their effects.³ The same, of course, applies to the reform that introduced English into kindergartens across the country in 2021–22.

What I would have liked to know, as a language education professional, is what children learn through PEAP, what procedures exist for assessing this learning, or how it carries into later grades. I would also have liked to know how these gains compare to the opportunity cost that the programme has created. How do we know that the linguistic benefits produced by hiring more English teachers outweigh the cognitive benefits of creating smaller classes by hiring more primary and early education professionals, the plurilingual benefits of hiring more specialists in languages other than English, or the integration benefits of hiring special education professionals?

To make sure the language policy succeeds,
the learning outcomes are written retroactively.

What we get instead is a shockingly cynical claim that the reform will strengthen ELT provision by formulating Expected Learning Outcomes for the young learners programmes. That is, the outcomes are being written after the materials, not the other way round!

Materials ahead of the language curriculum

All of the above points to a wider pattern in language policy in Greece: decisions, practices, and evidence do not seem to move together. The report draws unintended attention to this when describing the learning materials used in teaching additional languages

According to the report, “many didactic [sic, i.e., teaching] packages were approved and uploaded” to the national registry in April 2026.⁵ This timeline is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the Unified Curriculum is still being updated to include Expected Learning Outcomes, digital competences, teaching scenarios and alignment with the Companion Volume.

If the report is accurate,⁶ this timeline suggests that the materials “were approved” against a curriculum that is still being developed. With no funding and no time to revise before they arrive at schools in September 2027,⁷ there are two likely outcomes. One is that the curriculum will need to align with materials already in circulation; the other is that the materials and the curriculum will not align. Either way, one needs to ask what the point of such a curriculum is.

The report also signals the conversion of conventional materials into interactive open educational resources as a key action. However, digitising a resource does not make it pedagogically new: a multiple-choice grammar test does not align with contemporary pedagogy just because it became digital. The report is suspiciously silent when it comes to saying whether the digital versions of the materials align with the communicative, task-based principles the reform espouses.

For what it’s worth, here’s an example of how some digitised materials for teaching Modern Greek in primary school. Digitisation seems to have involved scanning a text, applying highlight to selected adjectives, and asking to supply the comparative and superlative forms, orally or by copying them into their notebooks.

Are teachers ready?

The last point I want to address is teacher readiness. The report itself acknowledges that sustainable implementation depends on large-scale professional development. I agree. What I am less sure about is how the reform meets the standard.

The flagship programme (SUB.8) is a 48-hour hybrid TPACK course and, complementing this, early childhood and English specialists will take a 24-hour asynchronous course. Beyond these, short workshops for advisors and subject specialists may also take place.

The training model fosters compliance rather than judgement.

What is problematic here is that this is, fundamentally, a top-down model. Teachers appear in the report only as people to be trained, whereas decisions about curricula, materials and AI guidance are made centrally and non-transparently, by the ELT apparatus. Read in context, the stated aim “nationwide readiness”, means readiness to implement across the country what others have designed.

What is missing, then, is any sense of teachers as autonomous professionals, who interpret curricula, adapt them to their learners and make informed judgements about what works in their classrooms. This kind of professional development does not foster autonomy, and I would argue that this is by design, not by accident. It is perhaps no accident that there is no mention, in the report, of teachers’ research literacy: their capacity to read, evaluate and use knowledge from sources other than the ELT apparatus, or to inquire systematically into their own practice. This is a striking omission in a reform that asks teachers to adopt AI tools whose effects are still unknown, and to work with materials whose evidence base goes unreported.

Modernisation for whom?

It is hard to disagree with what the report says. The success of the language reform, it says, depends on sustained investment in professional development and infrastructure, careful ethical governance of AI, and robust monitoring. I can stand behind all of this. But these are exactly the elements the report leaves least specified.

I would have liked to hedge here, and say that I have no reason to think that the reform is misguided. After all, a CEFR-aligned, outcome-based curriculum and a serious engagement with digital tools are reasonable aims. But I am deeply concerned with the story being told about these aims. The kind of modernisation implied in this account means more English, earlier; more digital content; and AI tools brought in under commercial partnerships. It does not mean more languages, more evidence, or more say for teachers.

A reform that would live up to the European frameworks it invokes should start with independent published evaluations of PEAP and the AI pilots, it should provide space for languages other than English in the early years, it should build on curricula decided before the materials that serve them, and it should involve professional development opportunities that empower teachers.

Over to you

I’ve made no effort to hide that I am deeply sceptical about the ELT provision in Greece, and about how non-transparent actors (‘the ELT apparatus’) shape language policy. I have never been patient with people who use the language of plurilingualism and democratic values to strengthen power asymmetries, including those present in language use and language education.

I am, however, also conscious that I am increasingly an outsider to the school system, the people best placed to challenge the absurdity of this report and fill its silences are those working inside the system. So I would like to hear from you:

• If you teach English in a kindergarten or the early grades of primary school, what has PEAP looked like in your classroom?
• If you took part in the AI pilots, or completed SUB.8, did it prepare you for what you are now being asked to do?
• If you teach another foreign language, or work with children who bring other languages from home, where do you see yourself in this reform?

Feel free to leave a comment below, or get in touch directly. And if you think this conversation deserves a wider audience, share the post with colleagues: even though we might not be able to make change happen, we can at least make disagreement voiced.

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say...

Footnotes

1. While the curriculum has been in place for over a decade, teaching often follows a set of textbooks that were first published in the mid-2000s. I often ask language teachers, in the professional development courses I run, if they can summarise the official curriculum or even point out where it is located. They almost never manage to answer either question. ↩︎
2. My personal record, when doing fieldwork in a tourist region, was 17 languages spoken in a single school. ↩︎
3. Some attempts to evaluate the PEAP, by the people who actually designed and implemented it, and by the teachers whose professional stakes depended on its continuation, deserve little attention. ↩︎
4. There is a pattern here, as all the decisions to widen ELT provision reportedly built on piloting stages, whose findings were never reported or followed the policy decisions. The decision to teach English in pre-school education took this pattern to an extreme, by being announced before the end of the piloting year. ↩︎
5. I would know, as I co-ordinated materials development for teaching Modern Greek at 3rd Form of Junior High Schools. ↩︎
6. I haven’t been able to locate any materials for additional language education, and I suspect that the report uses vague language to piggyback on our work and create the impression of progress where there is none. ↩︎
7. To ensure that school textbooks are in place in September in any given school year, printing needs to begin in the preceding March, and orders need to be placed several months before that. ↩︎

---