A milestone week for the start of the Panhellenic Examinations is the coming one, with the candidates of GEL and EPAL fighting their own “battle” for one of the 68,574 places in the Greek Higher Education Institutions.

Although the exact number of candidates who have declared that they will participate in the Exams has not been officially announced, according to sources from the Ministry of Education this number will be approximately the same as last year, i.e. it will rise to approximately 90,000.

This year, there are no particular changes in the way the Panhellenic Examinations are conducted as a whole. The Minimum Admission Basis will be applied for the third year, as well as the Parallel Computing for admission to Public IEK. The results (bases) are expected to be announced early again this year, towards the end of July, as was the case last year.

The minimal changes include the change in the grading method of the courses of Modern Greek and Ancient, the submission of computerized in one phase, the summary of 8 sections related to the environment and the economy in the 4th scientific field and two new sections that will be included in the 2nd and 3rd fields.

In addition, the ministry has assured that the conduct of the exams will not be affected by the conduct of the national elections.

“No spectacular changes”

As Giorgos Hatzitegas, educational analyst, noted in APE-MPE, the success rate of the candidates is expected to fluctuate at the same levels as last year, around 60%. “We don’t expect spectacular changes for this year,” he said.

What he pointed out is the internal “displacement” of candidates from the 1st Scientific Field (Humanities, Law & Social Sciences), which used to be the most numerous, to the 4th Field (Economic and Information Sciences). As he noted, in 2018, 32% of candidates focused on the 1st Scientific Field and 25% from the 4th. According to last year’s figures, the 4th Field has now taken the baton, as 35% of the applicants declare schools from the 4th Field and 25% from the 1st.

Changes

For the General Education Modern Greek Language and Literature course, starting this year the excellent for the first subject – that is, the summary that the candidates are asked to make – will receive 20 out of 100 points, up from 15 received until last year.

Also, in the course of Ancient Greek, one of the two questions of the taught text was “cut”, which received 2 points out of 20. These points will be added to the translation of the unlearned, the excellent for which will now be 10 points out of 20 , from 8 that were until last year.

Regarding the changes in the departments, this year two new ones will be added in the 2nd and 3rd Scientific Fields. These are the Department of Sustainable Agriculture in Agrinio and the Department of Agriculture in Messolonghi, departments which belong to the University of Patras.

In addition, eight divisions will be included from this year in the 4th Field, apart from the 2nd and 3rd which were until last year. These are the Environment departments in Mytilini, Larissa, and Zakynthos, the Social Policy departments in Athens and Komotini, the Forestry and Environmental and Natural Resources Management department in Orestiada, the Rural Development department in Orestiada and the Informatics department with applications in Biomedicine in Lamia.

Finally, the submission of Computer Science this year will not take place in two phases, but in one, as based on the data of the past years, a very high percentage of applicants (93% for 2022) are admitted to the schools of their first 10 choices from the first phase.

The program of the National Examinations

The GEL exams will begin on June 2, 2023 with the Modern Greek Language and Literature (General Education) course and then three days of orientation course exams will follow:

June 6: Ancient Greek (Humanities Orientation Group), Mathematics (O.P. of Positive Studies and Economics and Informatics Studies), Biology (O.P. of Health Studies)

June 8: Latin (Humanities Orientation Group), Chemistry (O.P. of Positive Studies and Health Studies), Informatics (O.P. of Economics and Informatics Studies)

June 12: History (Humanities Orientation Group), Physics (O.P. of Positive Studies and Health Studies), Economics (O.P. of Economic and Informatics Studies)

As for EPAL, the first day of the exams, June 1st, will also concern the General Education course, New Greek. The examination of the Mathematics course will follow (June 3) and the remaining days (June 7, 9, 10, 13, 15 and 16) will concern specialty courses.

Regarding the exams of the special courses, these will be held between June 17 – 29. Initially, on June 17 candidates will be tested in the English course and on June 19 in German. Afterwards, the Freestyle and Line Drawing exams will be held (June 20 and 21, respectively).

This will be followed by the exams of the courses related to admission to music departments: Harmony (June 22), Music Aural Skills Test (June 23), Music Perception and Knowledge (June 24), Music Performance and Interpretation (June 26).

Finally, the exams of the special courses will be completed with French (June 27), Spanish (June 28) and Italian (June 29).

End of high school classes

The 1st of June, in addition to the opening day of the All-Hellenic Examinations for GEL candidates, is also the first day of examinations for high school students. More specifically, next Tuesday, May 30, 2023, the last lessons will be held in the territory’s high school classes. Then, from June 1st to 15th, the promotional and final exams will be held.