The Greek primary education system is taking some timid steps toward its modernization, offering pupils some additional skills to the purely theoretical classes – yet there is so much potential for the schools of the 21st century.

The Education Ministry announced at the start of the new school year that all third and fourth grade pupils, i.e. nine- and 10-year-olds, will do 10 two-hour swimming classes per year, with 10 pupils assigned to each swimming coach. The classes will also include some life-saving techniques for swimmers. In a country surrounded by water, there sadly is an unacceptable number of people perishing at sea.

Another initiative concerns the expansion of school farming, with over 4,000 schools across the country cultivating their own vegetables as part of the curriculum as of this year.

However the potential is huge. Greece could take a leaf out of the book of several other countries, especially in the Far East, where children learn far more than the purely academical skills the Greek primary education supplies.

For instance, schools in Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore etc. have their pupils help with meal preparation, clean their classrooms, schoolyards, corridors and even toilets in some cases, sort the rubbish for recycling, and use the vegetables they grow in their “edible schoolyards” for their own school meals.

In Japanese schools, the afternoon meal takes the time of a proper class, i.e. 45 minutes, with pupils earning more than a meal’s worth: They learn discipline, respect, humility, manners, social skills and everything related to meal preparation and proper consumption.

Then students spend 20 minutes at the end of each schoolday to clean their own school, which promotes respect for the premises, teamwork, organization as well as some essential practical skills such as using the broom, the mop etc.

Trying to imagine what would have happened in Greece had pupils been required to clean their schools, one would expect teachers to protest about class time missed, parents would angrily refuse to let their children participate, some pupils might choose to make the wall express their minds using paint instead of cleaning it, political parties would fight over “child labor” and unionists would call a strike in favor of professional school cleaners.