Greece Trains Secondary Teachers in AI: What School Leaders Need to Know
Greece will start training secondary school teachers in artificial intelligence next week, becoming one of the first countries to bring generative AI into public classrooms. Under a new agreement with OpenAI, staff at 20 schools will learn to use a customised version of ChatGPT built for academic use.
Education Minister Sofia Zacharaki said the pilot reflects a simple reality: AI is already part of how students learn and work. A national rollout is slated for January, with older secondary students gaining access in spring under strict monitoring.
What the pilot includes
- Teacher workshops on lesson planning, research support, and personalised learning with ChatGPT Edu.
- Gradual classroom introduction, starting with teacher use and moving to student access for older grades.
- Safeguards around monitoring, usage policies, and assessment integrity.
This move follows Estonia's early adoption of classroom AI tools and fits with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's push to position Greece as a regional technology hub. Athens is set to host one of Europe's first AI factories, and the government has warned of possible "social unrest" if the benefits of AI aren't shared widely.
Concerns you'll hear-and how to address them
Student sentiment is mixed. Many worry that a high-pressure, exam-heavy system could turn AI into another source of stress. As 17-year-old Aristidis Tolos put it: "AI doesn't have a soul. It's a machine."
Unions are cautious. Dimitris Aktypis of OLME said AI-dominated classrooms were a major topic at their recent congress, with some fearing "teacherless" learning. Others warn about deeper screen dependency-especially as Greece prepares to block social media for under-15s.
There's also a practical reality check. Retired headteacher Dimitris Panayiotokopoulos noted that "children shiver in classrooms in winter because heating runs for only one hour." Technology won't fix broken infrastructure, and it can dull critical thinking if students are spoon-fed answers.
Still, many educators see opportunity if guardrails are firm. Physics teacher Panos Karagiorgos said AI can support staff but risks reinforcing a system that rewards test-taking over thinking. Private schools, including Athens College, already use AI for course design. Board chair Alexis Phylactopoulos supports national adoption as long as creativity and critical thinking remain central: "There are no easy answers with AI. It must be used carefully, with firm guardrails."
Practical guardrails for schools
- Clear scope: Define where AI helps (lesson ideas, scaffolds, differentiation) and where it doesn't (final grading, pastoral decisions).
- Assessment integrity: Use oral checks, in-class writing, and process portfolios. Reserve high-stakes tasks for supervised conditions.
- Age controls: Phase access by grade. Younger students see outputs via teacher-led demos; older students use accounts with monitoring.
- Privacy and safety: Prohibit personal data entry. Run a DPIA, set retention limits, and use content filters. Create simple reporting for harmful or biased outputs.
- Teacher-first adoption: Start with planning and feedback tools. Share prompts, exemplars, and failures in weekly stand-ups.
- Critical thinking first: Require students to fact-check, cite sources, and explain reasoning. Penalise unverified outputs.
- Screen balance: Pair AI tasks with discussion, labs, print reading, and hands-on work.
- Infrastructure basics: Heat, bandwidth, and device reliability come before new tools. Don't let tech mask facility gaps.
- Family communication: Publish a plain-language AI policy and send consent forms for student access.
- Measure impact: Track teacher workload, student engagement, and learning outcomes each term. Adjust quickly.
Quick start for pilot teachers (first 30 days)
- Create a "co-teacher" prompt for unit planning: standards, misconceptions, differentiation tiers, and formative checks.
- Build rubrics with AI, then refine them with department teams. Test on past student work.
- Generate question banks at multiple difficulty levels. Use them for retrieval practice, not final exams.
- Draft individualised scaffolds: sentence starters, outlines, and model reasoning. Keep explanations short and specific.
- Teach AI literacy: bias, hallucinations, and citation. Have students compare model outputs with trusted sources.
Policy notes for leaders
- Publish a short AI use policy and acceptable-use addendum for students.
- Set staff training hours and a support channel for quick troubleshooting.
- Adopt a tiered incident process for misuse: warning, redo, academic consequence.
- Share quarterly findings with the community-what helped, what didn't, and what's next.
Useful references
Optional training resources for educators
If you're planning staff development or need structured courses by role, see our curated options for schools: AI courses by job.
Bottom line: Greece is moving fast, and the classroom is the test bed. Keep the focus on teacher judgment, student thinking, and tight safeguards. If those hold, AI can save time and open space for deeper learning without losing the human core of education.
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