Hellenic Statistical Authority

Sectoral Statistics Division

Education Statistics Section

46, Pireos & Eponiton Str, 18510 Piraeus, Greece

A general description of the statistical process and its outputs, and their evolution over time.

NATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM
The following documents provide general information on the educational system; please add the relevant links for your country.

International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED2013) in all educational levels.

All school units in preprimary, primary and secondary education. All university sections in tertiary education. 

According to the Regulations and the definitions, provided by Eurostat. However, national diversifications are taken into account in some ISCED educational levels.

Statistical unit is the school unit in primary and secondary education and the University Section in Tertiary Education.

Census Surveys In all educational levels are conducted on an annual basis. All school units in preprimary, primary, and in secondary educatoin, and all University Sections in Tertiary Education are considered as the statistical population. Among the goals of the census surveys is to measure total enrollment in preprimary, primary in secondary and in Tertiary Education, total number of graduates from upper secondary and from Tertiary education, and total number of new entrants in upper secondary, and in Tertiary Education.

Greece (total), Region (NUTS2) and Prefecture (NUTS3)

The total population of all school units of preprimary, primary, of lower secondary and of upper secondary education are covered by ELSTAT's annual Census surveys  and the total population of all University sections and of all Tertiary Technological Education sections at isced levels 6 (bachelors) and 7 (masters) are fully covered by ELSTAT's Census surveys. Questionnaires designed to measure total enrollment at a master's level (Isced 7) also measure the total enrollment at isced level 8 (doctoral students, and graduates).  Our surveys were carried out for the first time in 1954/1955 and are conducted at an annual basis until the current school - academic year. Each survey is carried out at the end of each school -academic year, but the reference date for ages is the 31/12/ of the 1st school year (for 2020-21 the reference date for ages is the 31/12/ 2020).

Not applicable

See below

For each UOE table, please list the source(s) used to compile information: UOE table, name, type, date of availability and responsibility.

Data on school-units, teaching staff, enrollment, new entrants, graduates, are collected annually, at the end of every school/academic year. Data on education expenditure are collected six months after the end of the reference year.

For Early Chilhood (ISCED01), data are collected via questionnaires for the public and the private sector.

For Pre-Primary, Primary, Lower and Upper Secondary Education and Vocational Secondary Education (ISCED02-03), data are collected via census surveys (questionnaire are sent to all private schools) for the private sector and via administrative sources (My school database by the Greek Ministry of Education) for the public sector.

For ISCED4, data are derived from administrative sources (data are annually collected by the Ministry of Education, separately for public and private IEK, by the Ministry of Labour-OAED, the Ministry of Tourism, and the two IEK schools providing training to ambulance staff).

For Tertiary Education (ISCED6-8), data are collected via annual census surveys for isced level 6, questionnaires are sent to all University sections (AEIs)  and via annual census surveys  at isced levels 7-8 measuring postgraduate enrollment, new entrants and graduates for masters & for doctorates)-in AEIs.

For education expenditure, data are derived from administrative sources for the public sector and from surveys for isced levels 0-4 for the private sector. In private sector all school units are targeted but the response rate

 amounted approximately to 60%. Imputation and estimation methods were applied for dealing with item non-response and unit non-response respectively

In Greece, private educational Institutions for ISCED6-8 do not exist.

Moreover, ISCED 5 does not exist in Greece.

The data are validated by means of a series of checks. The control of the questionnaires encompasses completeness, accuracy and logical checks at the level of the Department/Faculty, electronic and quality checks. The main variables are compared with the variables from other statistical sources. Primary data are cross-checked with the corresponding data of the previous year.

Operations performed on data to derive new information according to a given set of rules.

Not necessary.

During data processing, data are also compared, mainly, with data from the previous school year, in order to detect any deviations.

For the year 2015/2016, in vocational upper secondary education, EPAS school units (of Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Health) were upgraded to Post-secondary education (isced4).

Quality Management - assurance:

During data processing, data are compared mainly with data from previous school years in order to detect deviations. In case such deviations are identified, further clarifications are asked from the school units and from the relevant Divisions of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs and any errors are duly corrected.

The quality of the surveys on education in all ISCED levels (ISCED 0-8) is also ensured by adhering to the provisions of the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Quality Management - assessment:

The questionnaires are filled in by the School Units in ISCED levels 02-3 for the private sector and by administrative sources for the public sector. For private sector, the relevant Divisions of Education transmit the completed questionnaires to the Education Statistics Section, where the section checks for completeness and correctness. After the completion of the checks and comparisons, any errors are duly corrected, thus ensuring the production of high quality results. The errors or omissions which are detected, are taken into consideration in order to carry out further checks in the survey of the following year. For the public sector, the Education Statistics Section follows the same procedure as for the private sector.

The same apllies to ISCED levels 6 to 8, where the questionnaires are filled in by the administrative staff of the Departments of the Universities and of Technical Schools of Tertiary Education, which in their turn transmit the completed questionnaires to the Education Statistics Section, where the relevant checks and corrections are made.

Finally, quality is ensured through the Quality Policy implemented by ELSTAT, which is available at the following link: http://www.statistics.gr/en/policies

See below

The main national users are government agencies, such as the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, Local Governments, as well as university teachers, students, researchers, the press, etc. At international level the main user is Eurostat, as well as other international organisations (UNESCO, OECD, etc.).

Users' needs are recorded in the publication "Information Bulletin", which is published by the Division of Statistical Information and Publications/Library Section every semester.

A Users Satisfaction Survey is conducted by the Statistical Dissemination Section of the Division of Statistical Information and Publications. The survey results are available at the following link:

http://www.statistics.gr/en/user-satisfaction-survey

The extent to which all statistics that are needed are available.

Not available.

See below

Overall accuracy is considered satisfactory, since the surveys are census and there is full coverage. Any non-sampling errors are identified by means of appropriate checking and are duly corrected in cooperation with the relevant Division of Education, supervising the corresponding school units (ISCED 02-3) and with the administrative staff of the Departments of Universities or the Technical Schools of Tertiary Education (ISCED 6-8). 

There are no sampling errors, because only census surveys are carried out. Each registers. is updated during the summer, before the beginning of the school year, taking into consideration new school-units or new University sections, closing down of old school units or University sections, merging of school units or of University sections, in addition to any changes in every education level, as these are reflected in the relevant regislation.

More specifically, for ISCED levels 02-3 (preprimary schools, primary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary general and some vocational schools (EPAL supervised by the Ministry of Education)), each register is obtained from the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs for the public sector and from the relevant Divisions of Education for the private sector. FOr school units supervised by other Ministries (for example, EPAS supervised by the Ministry of Labour, the register is derived by the supervising Ministry). For isced level 4, the Ministries supervising IEK (post-secondary non-formal vocational education, leading to vocational qualification at level 5) keep their registers and provide summary data on enrollment, new entrants, graduates, broken down by sex, ages, fields of study, for the total of students enrolled in IEK institutions supervised by their ministry.

For ISCED levels 6 to 8, the 4 registers (of undergraduate and post graduate University sections (AEIs) and Tertiary Technological Education  a) at a bachelor's level and b) at a master's level)  are updated before the beginning of the academic year, after consulting the Division of Tertiary Education of the Hellenic Ministry of Education, taking into account any changes that have taken place in each Isced level.

Therefore, there is full coverage of all preprimary, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school units and of all IEK and of all University sections and of all sections belonging to Technological Tertiary Inistitutions at a bachelor's level and at a master's level.

There is no full coverage of kindergartens, as these data are kept by another institution (EETA) and they concern only kindergartens participating in ESPA programs, instead of the total number of kindergartens.

Not applicable.

Any non-sampling errors (non response or processing errors) are identified by means of appropriate checking and are duly corrected, in cooperation with the Informatics Division of ELSTAT and the relevant Division of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, which supervise the corresponding school units (ISCED 02-3) and the administrative staff of the Departments of Universities or Technical Schools of Tertiary Education (ISCED6-8).

On ISCED01, any non-sampling errors (non response or processing errors) are identified and corrected, in cooperation with the Municipalities of Greece, which supervise the corresponding early childhood education programmes.

Divergence between the frame population and the target population.

Not available.

Not applicable.

The questionnaires, which are filled in, include logical checks. Then, these are checked and codified by the Education Statistics Section. At this stage, data are compared with the corresponding data of every survey of the previous year. The above procedure minimizes any measurement errors.

Every school unit or every University section, belonging to one of our registers has to submit a questionnaire to ELSTAT annually, otherwise either the school unit or the Division of Primary or of Secondary Education is contacted by us in order to provide the missing questionnaire for the school that has not responded and in order to inform us about any change that might have occured in the Register, such as the school unit has closed down, two school units have merged and other possible changes. As far as Tertiary Education is ceoncerned every University section that has not responded timely is conducted by us in order to submit its questoinnaire.

The surveyed school units respond to the survey and fill in the questionnaires. In case there are missing values for some variables, ELSTAT staff of the Education Statistics Section contacts the school unit or the relevant Division of Education (ISCED 0-3) or the administrative staff of the University section (ISCED 6-8) in order to fill in the missing variables.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Once collected, the questionnaires are subject to quality, logical and computational checks. Then, the Informatics Dιvision does the data entry and afterwards the errors are forwarded to the Education Statistics Section of ELSTAT  in order to correct them, adn forward them back to the informatics division for further processing, and the crosstabulation of a series of tables on enrollment, new entrants, graduates, teaching staff at each educational level. When the tables are ready, further checks are carried out onto them in order to see if they agree, independently (a table at a time) and jointly (the totals of 2 or more tables measuring the same core variable (eg enrollement) have to agree with each other. If they do not agree they are sent back to the informatics division for further processing. Tables at each ISCED level are crosstabulated for our Webpage. The above procedure minimizes processing errors.

Not applicable.

Not applicable

No seasonal adjustment methods or tools are implemented for eliminating any impacts on account of seasonality.

The revision of data, if necessary, is based on the circular concerning the Revision Policy of ELSTAT, which is available at the following link: http://www.statistics.gr/en/policies

Any change in a value of a statistic released to the public.

Not available.

Length of time between data availability and the event or phenomenon they describe. Typically includes:

Not available.

Not available.

Not available.

The number of days between the delivery/release date of data and the target date on which they were scheduled for delivery/ release.

No deviation

Any differencies that may be identified with relevant surveys conducted by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs may be attributed on the different reference periods of the two surveys and on the two different methodologies. The database "MySchool" of the Ministry of Education is a database, in which data are updated continuously-every day, and if a querry is made on a different date, the results would slightly differ with each -other, as new pupils come and other students abandon their studies, new teachers are hired and others leave the teaching profession, etc.

The data collected through ELSTAT's census surveys measure enrollments, new entrants, etc at the end of the school or academic year (A cross-sectional methodology is employed, obtaining a snapshot on key variables such as on total enrollment, mobile students, etc.  at the end of the school-year).

The extent to which statistics are comparable between countries.

A. Deviations between the national methodology and the UOE Manual: non financial data

B. Deviations between the national methodology and the UOE Manual: financial data

Not available.

The extent to which statistics are comparable or reconcilable over time.

Not available.

The extent to which statistics are reconcilable with those obtained through other data sources or statistical domains.

There is no problem with the coherence among monthly, quarterly and annual data because the surveys are conducted on a yearly basis.

The extent to which statistics are reconcilable with National Accounts.

No inconsistencies are observed.

Press Releases are published on the portal of ELSTAT for each ISCED level.

Besides the Press Releases, data on education are also published in the following:

- Living Conditions in Greece and

- Greece in figures

Not available.

Not available.

Microdata and primary data are made available to users after submitting their request to the Division of Statistical Information and Publication of ELSTAT.

Confidentiality of data is always ensured.

Any further information is available by the Division of Statistical Information and Publications of ELSTAT.

A short note is available on the portal of ELSTAT, according to the ISCED level, at the link: http://www.statistics.gr/en/statistics/pop

After data collection through the questionnaires of the surveys, logical checks are carried out in order to check correctness and completeness of data by contacting the involved agencies.Furthermore, electronic and quality checks are conducted on the tabulated data. A user-oriented Quality Report and survey metadata in the form of SIMS are posted on the website of ELSTAT, according to the ISCED level.

Metadata completeness rate amounts to 100%.

Not available.

Indication of the cost associated with the collection and production of a statistical product and burden on respondents.

See below

The issues concerning the observance of statistical confidentiality by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) are arranged by articles 7, 8 and 9 of the Law 3832/2010 as in force, by Articles 8, 10 and 11(2) of the Regulation on Statistical Obligations of the agencies of the Hellenic Statistical System and by Articles 10 and 15 of the Regulation on the Operation and Administration of ELSTAT.

More precisely:

ELSTAT disseminates the statistics in compliance with the statistical principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice and in particular with the principle of statistical confidentiality.

• ELSTAT protects and does not disseminate data it has obtained or it has access to, which enable the direct or indirect identification of the statistical units that have provided them by the disclosure of individual information directly received for statistical purposes or indirectly supplied from administrative or other sources. ELSTAT takes all appropriate preventive measures so as to render impossible the identification of individual statistical units by technical or other means that might reasonably be used by a third party. Statistical data that could potentially enable the identification of the statistical unit are disseminated by ELSTAT if and only if:

a) these data have been treated, as it is specifically set out in the Regulation on Statistical Obligations of the agencies of the Hellenic Statistical System (ELSS), in such a way that their dissemination does not prejudice statistical confidentiality or

b) the statistical unit has given its consent, without any reservations, for the disclosure of data.

• The confidential data that are transmitted by ELSS agencies to ELSTAT are used exclusively for statistical purposes and the only persons who have the right to have access to these data are the personnel engaged in this task and appointed by an act of the President of ELSTAT.
• ELSTAT may grant researchers conducting statistical analyses for scientific purposes access to data that enable the indirect identification of the statistical units concerned. The access is granted provided the following conditions are satisfied:
  
  a) an appropriate request together with a detailed research proposal in conformity with current scientific standards have been submitted;
  
  b) the research proposal indicates in sufficient detail the set of data to be accessed, the methods of analyzing them, and the time needed for the research;
  
  c) a contract specifying the conditions for access, the obligations of the researchers, the measures for respecting the confidentiality of statistical data and the sanctions in case of breach of these obligations has been signed by the individual researcher, by his/her institution, or by the organization commissioning the research, as the case may be, and by ELSTAT.
• Issues referring to the observance of statistical confidentiality are examined by the Statistical Confidentiality Committee (SCC) operating in ELSTAT. The responsibilities of this Committee are to make recommendations to the President of ELSTAT on:
  •  the level of detail at which statistical data can be disseminated, so as the identification, either directly or indirectly, of the surveyed statistical unit is not possible;
  • the anonymization criteria for the microdata provided to users;
  •  the granting to researchers access to confidential data for scientific purposes.
• The staff of ELSTAT, under any employment status, as well as the temporary survey workers who are employed for the collection of statistical data in statistical surveys conducted by ELSTAT, who acquire access by any means to confidential data, are bound by the principle of confidentiality and must use these data exclusively for the statistical purposes of ELSTAT. After the termination of their term of office, they are not allowed to use these data for any purpose.
• Violation of data confidentiality and/or statistical confidentiality by any civil servant or employee of ELSTAT constitutes the disciplinary offence of violation of duty and may be punished with the penalty of final dismissal.

ELSTAT, by its decision, may impose a penalty amounting from ten thousand (10,000) up to two hundred thousand (200,000) euros to anyone who violates the confidentiality of data and/or statistical confidentiality. The penalty is always imposed after the hearing of the defense of the person liable for the breach, depending on the gravity and the repercussions of the violation. Any relapse constitutes an aggravating factor for the assessment of the administrative sanction.

• ELSTAT protects and does not disseminate data it has obtained or it has access to, which enable the direct or indirect identification of the statistical units that have provided them by the disclosure of individual information directly received for statistical purposes or indirectly supplied from administrative or other sources. ELSTAT takes all appropriate preventive measures so as to render impossible the identification of individual statistical units by technical or other means that might reasonably be used by a third party. Statistical data that could potentially enable the identification of the statistical unit are disseminated by ELSTAT if and only if:

a) these data have been treated, as it is specifically set out in the Regulation on Statistical Obligations of the agencies of the Hellenic Statistical System (ELSS), in such a way that their dissemination does not prejudice statistical confidentiality or

b) the statistical unit has given its consent, without any reservations, for the disclosure of data.

• The confidential data that are transmitted by ELSS agencies to ELSTAT are used exclusively for statistical purposes and the only persons who have the right to have access to these data are the personnel engaged in this task and appointed by an act of the President of ELSTAT.
• ELSTAT may grant researchers conducting statistical analyses for scientific purposes access to data that enable the indirect identification of the statistical units concerned. The access is granted provided the following conditions are satisfied:
  
  a) an appropriate request together with a detailed research proposal in conformity with current scientific standards have been submitted;
  
  b) the research proposal indicates in sufficient detail the set of data to be accessed, the methods of analyzing them, and the time needed for the research;
  
  c) a contract specifying the conditions for access, the obligations of the researchers, the measures for respecting the confidentiality of statistical data and the sanctions in case of breach of these obligations has been signed by the individual researcher, by his/her institution, or by the organization commissioning the research, as the case may be, and by ELSTAT.
• Issues referring to the observance of statistical confidentiality are examined by the Statistical Confidentiality Committee (SCC) operating in ELSTAT. The responsibilities of this Committee are to make recommendations to the President of ELSTAT on:
  •  the level of detail at which statistical data can be disseminated, so as the identification, either directly or indirectly, of the surveyed statistical unit is not possible;
  • the anonymization criteria for the microdata provided to users;
  •  the granting to researchers access to confidential data for scientific purposes.
• The staff of ELSTAT, under any employment status, as well as the temporary survey workers who are employed for the collection of statistical data in statistical surveys conducted by ELSTAT, who acquire access by any means to confidential data, are bound by the principle of confidentiality and must use these data exclusively for the statistical purposes of ELSTAT. After the termination of their term of office, they are not allowed to use these data for any purpose.
• Violation of data confidentiality and/or statistical confidentiality by any civil servant or employee of ELSTAT constitutes the disciplinary offence of violation of duty and may be punished with the penalty of final dismissal.

ELSTAT, by its decision, may impose a penalty amounting from ten thousand (10,000) up to two hundred thousand (200,000) euros to anyone who violates the confidentiality of data and/or statistical confidentiality. The penalty is always imposed after the hearing of the defense of the person liable for the breach, depending on the gravity and the repercussions of the violation. Any relapse constitutes an aggravating factor for the assessment of the administrative sanction.

Supplementary descriptive text can be attached to data or metadata.