Eight Greek Foundations -- namely, the Lambrakis Foundation (the initiator of the partnership), the Evgenides Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, the I. F. Kostopoulos Foundation, the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, the Bodossakis Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Alexandros S. Onassis Foundation -- have joined forces to undertake the Protovoulia (Education and Development Initiative), in order to fund and run a programme of Actions, designed to introduce and sustain a set of innovation-driven improvements to school education in Greece. The long-term objectives of Protovoulia are to enhance the quality of education and to promote access to equal opportunities for life-long learning, improving the skills base and employability of young people, by facilitating the active participation of teachers and pupils themselves.
Through this ethos of equal cooperation and within the framework of their broader social mission, the Foundations are committed to implement a series of effective proposals with three goals in mind: first, to improve the quality of school education in Greece; secondly, to enrich pupils knowledge and cultivate their competences and abilities at large; and finally, to better inform upper secondary level students and their families concerning their options for tertiary level education, both through providing information on tertiary education courses and degrees, and through offering occupational profiles and information regarding the requisite knowledge and competences for various career paths.
To this end, the Protovoulia comprises two main lines of actions, one addressing broad, General Education needs, at Primary and Lower Secondary level, and the other addressing the Professional and Personal Development needs of Upper Secondary students. The defining characteristic of this Education Initiative is its holistic approach to Education, Culture and Social Development (comprising growth and social inclusion). It is this approach which aligns the Protovoulia objectives to the stated EU objectives for Europe in the 21st century.
The General Education line of actions encompasses innovative education projects aimed mainly at students and teachers. These include:
a) Content-based Thematic Presentations, on topics such as the History of European Culture or the Evolution of Science, together with state-of-the-art social, economic and technological scientific developments in the modern world.
b) Online Learning Games targeted at children aged 10-15 years, which are designed to offer entertainment, while fostering children knowledge and competences.
c) A systematically expanding Network of Innovating Schools, through which sustainable support will be offered to schools and school teachers, addressing many aspects of school education and introducing a state-of-the-art pedagogical approach to instructional, competence-based design and assessment, deploying the Key Competencies (the new literacies) agenda.