Secondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system.
This week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI.
“We have to accept that AI does not exist in a parallel universe. It is here,” the education minister, Sofia Zacharaki, said ahead of the pilot programme launch.
The initiative, which is to be expanded nationally in January, makes Greece one of the first countries to pioneer the use of generative AI in the classroom.
Workshops will initially focus on teachers mastering the new technology to assist lesson planning, research and personalised tuition, before ChatGPT Edu is gradually integrated into schools. Next spring, when older secondary school students are allowed to use the tool, access will be tightly monitored, officials say.
Greece follows Estonia in its embrace of the technology. Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s pro-business government has ambitions for Greece to become a technological hub, with Athens hosting one of Europe’s first AI factories.
Although Mitsotakis has warned of “significant social unrest” if the AI revolution is seen only to enrich tech companies, his administration is among the first to devise a national strategy to prepare Greeks “for the developments that all kinds of applications of this technology will bring”.
In schools where the majority of pupils already use apps such as ChatGPT, the government has been guided by the belief that “if you can’t beat the bot, befriend the bot.”
But among some Greeks the response has been less enthusiastic.
Secondary school pupils, citing the pressures of an education system overly concentrated on exams, express fears of being “outsmarted and controlled” by AI if it is allowed to develop unrestricted.
“It terrifies me,” said 17-year-old Aristidis Tolos, attending a demonstration in central Athens, held in part to protest against the direction of education reforms. “They’re asking so much of us, and now this. AI doesn’t have a soul, it’s a machine.”
OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, says Greece’s commitment to test-run the chatbot amounts to a “new educational chapter” for the country. Under the deal, the US company has pledged to oversee that “best practices for safe, effective classroom use” are applied.
Sceptics are concerned that Greece is becoming a laboratory for a technology whose inherent risks include the erosion of critical and creative thinking.
In the downtown offices of the federation of secondary school teachers, Olme, the prospect of its introduction has ignited consternation.
“At our recent congress it was the main issue of discussion, with many voicing disquiet,” said top official Dimitris Aktypis, adding that there is concern about whether these changes could ultimately lead to “teacherless” classes.
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Educators also worry the new technology will exacerbate screen addiction in a country that will soon become the first in Europe to block social media access for children under 15.
“After 40 years of teaching, I can honestly say that screens have destroyed children,” said Dimitris Panayiotokopoulos, who retired as a primary school headteacher this year. “AI is not a panacea. It poses a huge threat to critical thinking if kids are spoon-fed answers.”
The government, he said, should instead focus on improving facilities in a nation where the education sector is allotted less than 5% of the budget, despite demands for increases going back decades.
“In the winter you see kids shivering in classrooms because we are only allowed to put the heating on for a single hour,” said Panayiotokopoulos. “They talk about the digital age, but often basic things like electricity and plugs don’t work. It’s an atrocious situation that needs to be urgently tackled.”
Olme represents 85,000 teachers, most of them permanent staff, who speak of an ingrained culture in classrooms of rote-learning.
“We shouldn’t be technophobic. AI, after all, can help educators be more effective,” said Panos Karagiorgos, a secondary school physics teacher.
“But it’s problematic when AI is used in a system whose sole aim is to produce pupils who can pass exams. There’s no interest in schools producing well-rounded kids, which in itself stifles creativity.”
Physics teacher Panos Karagiorgos: ‘We shouldn’t be technophobic’ but AI ‘stifles creativity’. Photograph: Helena Smith/The Guardian
Until now, AI has been exclusively used in private schools in Greece. Athens College, the alma mater of several Greek leaders, including Mitsotakis, was among the first to use AI to aid course design and instruction.
“I don’t think Greece should miss this passing train,” said Alexis Phylactopoulos, chair of the school’s board of directors, adding that he wholeheartedly supported AI’s integration into the national curriculum if critical thinking and creativity was safeguarded.
“There’s no easy answers with AI. It has to be used as a tool in education and with a lot of guardrails.”
