National diploma coming for first-year high school students

A national dialogue is beginning on reforming the structure of Greek high schools and the university admission system, with the introduction of the National Diploma (Ethniko Apolytirio).

The discussion will officially start in the coming days, led by Minister of Education Sofia Zacharaki. The government aims to implement the new system starting in the 2026–2027 school year—that is, for students currently graduating from middle school who will enter the first year of high school (A’ Lykeiou) in 2026. To meet this goal, the necessary legislation must be completed by May 2026.

There is broad consensus that the current system faces major problems:

• The educational role of high school has been undermined, as students focus solely on the four subjects tested in national exams.
• The high school diploma has therefore lost its value.
• Private tutoring costs are placing a heavy financial burden on families.
• The evaluation of university candidates is unreliable, as 18-year-olds are judged only once, during four three-hour exams.

The only widely acknowledged advantage of the current system is the integrity and transparency of the grading process, which explains its longevity.

Minister Zacharaki will emphasize these issues in order to demonstrate to society and political stakeholders the importance of the reform, while presenting the government’s main proposals for the new National Diploma.

According to Minister of State Akis Skertsos, the general framework is as follows:

• No increase in the number of exams—only a change in how they are conducted. All exam topics will be drawn by lot from a central question bank with graded difficulty levels and standardized grading guidelines. The question bank will be developed by the Institute of Educational Policy, with possible participation from university academics.
• To ensure reliability, students’ written exams may be digitized and stored in an archive, while an external body of experienced graders could conduct sample checks.
• The final National Diploma grade may include results from all three years of high school, reducing the weight of a single three-hour test while keeping schools from becoming mere exam centers.
• Political consensus is considered essential, since national elections will take place before the first cohort under the new system graduates.
• Teachers’ semester grades could be adjusted based on final written performance, limiting the risk of subjective grading.

The reform seeks to strike a balance between academic integrity, fairness, and reducing the exam pressure currently dominating the Greek high school experience.