Education

The majority of Greek-Canadian immigrants came from a rural society where formal education was highly valued and to be achieved for one’s child at all costs. In Greece education has been the main avenue to upward social mobility for the lower classes, especially peasants. In rural society, as well as in small country towns, the morfomenoi (educated ones), such as teachers, doctors, and lawyers, command the highest respect and represent models for other citizens. Greek immigrants who moved to Canada after 1945 had relatively low academic attainment in the homeland – 54 percent of Greek immigrants aged fifteen years and over had less than eight years of school completed, compared to 33 percent of the Canadian-born population. Only 3 percent of Greek immigrants had university degrees, as compared with 5 percent of Canadian-born. Nazi occupation and civil war had interrupted the education of Greek children at all levels. Many did not finish elementary school or attend high school because their areas were war zones. Some immigrants, however, completed high school in Canada and eventually obtained university degrees in arts and sciences. Others earned certificates or diplomas from vocational schools.

Second-generation Greek Canadians tend to have more schooling than their parents. Preliminary inquiries in Greek-Canadian communities (such as London and Toronto) during the late 1980s showed that the average number of years of schooling completed by children of Greek immigrants was 14.5, more than twice the figure for their parents. Parents’ expectations, financial assistance by the family, and availability of post-secondary institutions in Canada facilitate such attainment; neither male nor female children of Greek immigrants seem handicapped by their ethnicity.

Since 1983 the Montreal Centre for Greek Studies, founded by a group of professionals, has offered college- and university-level courses in English, French, and Greek to expose the general public to Greek values. The centre encourages Greek-Canadian youth to share their cultural inheritance with their fellow citizens. Other institutions that offer courses in Greek language, history, and civilization include the University of Montreal, Concordia University, and McGill University in Montreal and the University of Toronto and York University in Toronto. McGill offers a full program leading to a B.A. in classics and modern Greek. In January 1997 Greek-Canadian communities of British Columbia, under the leadership of the Hellenic Canadian Congress of that province, began efforts to establish the first professsorial chair in Hellenic studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The Greek government has also assisted Greek-language schools in Canada that offer primary- and secondary-school courses in the evenings or on Saturdays. In 1977 the Greek Ministry of Education established the Office of Educational Adviser in Toronto and Montreal to cooperate with Greek communities and parents’ associations in improving Greek-language school programs and to organize seminars for Greek-language teachers, provide free Greek textbooks to children, and arrange hospitality for schoolchildren who wish to spend their summer in recreational camps in Greece. The Toronto office advises Greek-language schools west of Quebec. The Montreal office serves Greek-language schools in Quebec and the St George Greek School in Halifax.

The Greek community of Montreal and the Greek Orthodox Community of Laval, Quebec, were in 1993 the only Greek-Canadian communities operating full-time primary Greek schools during the day. The school curriculum is approved by Quebec’s Ministry of Education and includes instruction in French (60 percent), Greek (30 percent), and English (10 percent). In 1992–93 over 2,500 children were enrolled in the five schools in Montreal and one in Laval, which received financial assistance from the government of Quebec and parents.